After the Demo, a Fishy View of the Way Ahead.

Phew! I don't think that I saw as many human beings in the last two years, as in the last couple of days. However the Demo went of peacefully, bar a few Brexiteers throwing eggs and trying to make trouble - so I'm told, though I didn't see any myself. Apparently they were quickly contained by the police, who on the whole were remarkable for their absence. I thought to myself, where else could you have over a million people thronging the centre of power and protesting the Government's actions with so much good humour and so little trouble? It actually made me feel really proud of the English part of my heritage in a way that I hadn't done so for something over fifty years. The question that nags is, can they be serious, when there is so little difference between a demo and a walk in the park?

photo by Liz Aston

     The poster on the right has to have my prize; others slogans I particularly appreciated were '50%English, 50%Irish, 100%European' and 'This is what a real demo looks like, Nigel!' Things did get claustrophobic as we approached Parliament Square, with a steady flow of people arriving and nowhere to go. A counter flow developed, which we  joined, escaping off to the first promising watering hole that we could find, which happened to be the floating pub on the Tattershall Castle. Even on an old boat permanently tied up in the middle of London, I feel a little better afloat, and I love to watch the tide pulsing in and out regardless of our passing cares!

With Liz and Bernie

So it went on; next day Cristiona, Joe and myself took a boat downriver to Greenwich, which was mobbed with Sunday strollers in fine Spring sunshine that had finally prevailed over grey cloud. London looked magnificent from the hill there, as it did from the river. It's a pity there's no view to the east and the sea though. Of course I would liked to have carried on downriver, towards the place of my birth and earliest memories, Southend-on-Sea. I always however despised those endless mud-flats, that dirty water and the dreary, battered waste-land ashore. How my heart lifted when, in my father's little boat, I first experienced the Atlantic swell down off the Lizard! However,  possibly now, with for instance old rubbish tips reclaimed as nature reserves, with a better appreciation for all those little reminders of a long past and also battered as I am with perhaps too much familiarity with Atlantic swells, I might appreciate the Essex mud-flats better.

     The question is, did the Demo really make a difference, other than leaving us with the agreeable sensation of having done our bit? Where do we go from here? I always tend to revert to seeing the whole problem in terms of fishing, being what I have a lot of first-hand experience of and also because I regard is as a specially good lens through which to view these things. Besides, being on the London River reminded me of Mr Farage's little jaunt on a fishing boat here: a typical meaningless stunt, considering that the inshore fleet has nothing to gain from Brexit, and indeed quite a lot to lose. They mostly deal in shellfish for which the biggest and best market is on the Continent.

     What about bigger boats? It is of course true that the quota system of the CFP is extremely deficient, but who is to say that a national fishing policy would be any better? Either way, it needs a drastic overhaul. We have a classic breakdown between a Command and Control superstructure and actual reality; but one thing Brexit will certainly not produce is more fish. In the case of the Newlyn netter fleet, they will get an awful shock if they lose half their fishing ground, being shut out of Irish waters. But there are very few skipper/owners left, and the health of the stocks is dire. 

      Fishermen are adept at finding new possibilities, and there has indeed anyway been a reduction in effort which presumably has to do some good; however, one should not necessarily take little bits of good news at face value. For example it is very doubtful that the recent good landings of hake off the south of Ireland are merely the result of a decline in Spanish fishing effort and improvement in stocks. More likely it is because, equipped with Olex chartplotters, they have now a very accurate picture of the sea-bed beneath them, and have learnt to target the hake more effectively.

     Anyway most of the British fleet, other than the inshore boats, are company owned. The capital involved could just as well be from Spaniards as anyone else. The quota system does work half well for these companies. In England they are able to buy up and manipulate fish quota in a way that is impossible for a skipper/owner, say in Ireland. Since it became frequently impossible for the Irish skipper to make a living within his quotas, selling fish at public auctions has pretty much died out, for the simple reason that it is not possible to lay out one's catch on the auction hall floor. What the log-books say and what the boxes actually contain are two different things. Meanwhile, the companies are in a better position to negotiate a modus vivendi with the authorities, and when this does break down, they can afford the odd fine in a way the skipper/owner probably cannot. Unless they  are seriously enlightened, they will find it very hard to resist the Duckie's (Trumpian) approach.

     Changing all this will be very difficult. In the extremely unlikely event of a British Government, especially a Tory one, seriously wanting to do so, the fact is that any solution will have a large market dimension, and the market is continent-wide. It will also require the active collaboration of the fishermen themselves and all stake-holders. However the fact that decision-making is perhaps more objective on an EU level, and its very remoteness means it may be less subject to local interests, has its advantages. Certainly nothing can be done when competing national interests constantly subvert and drag down to a lowest common denominator. The necessary scientific and technical know-how are also much more likely to emerge on a continental basis, along with the whole cultural revolution that is called for. 

     To develop the will and indeed the techniques to turn situations like this around is the vital task ahead of us all, if we do not want to bequeath an utterly dysfunctional and dystopic world, where pockets of elite interest scrap over the plundered and degraded remnants of a once beautiful and bountiful world. The EU can only survive and prosper, and ourselves with it, to the degree that it offers a credible context and environment for so doing.

Heading Down the London River.

       
     

One Last Heave....

One last heave, and we can bury Brexit! I am in London, to be close to the action this coming Saturday. My understanding is that as a serious proposition, if it ever was one, Brexit is dead. The die-hards are merely holding out in the hope that they may get their way on account of the pusillanimity or plain laziness of Europeans. We must now see them off, and a massive demo on Saturday is just the ticket.

One Kind of Transition!

     However, the essential contest at this stage is not so much between Brexiteers and Remainers, but rather between those desperate to get back to 'normality', whose dominant instinct is to avoid rocking the boat too much and to uphold the great British tradition of fudging difficult issues, and on the other hand those who realise that in these increasingly desperate times, issues must be faced and truths upheld. We cannot afford to carry on washing our hands with 'Truth, what is that?'

     Pontius Pilate's line with regard to Brexit goes something like this:- It has all gone on far too long. We did have that vote and cannot  simply ignore it, or we shall never get the country to pull together again; at the same time anyone with a modicum of sense is now aware that our involvement with Europe is far too broad and deep to be simply cut off. We've had a good circus, now let's concentrate on the bread as best we can!

     So what about this dangerous, idealistic notion about truths that must be upheld? What might I have in mind? To put it as simply as I can - there is a nexus of interrelated issues, from climate change and environmental degradation to the structure of wealth, which must be addressed with the utmost urgency, and the European project represents a step in this direction, a basic prerequisite for addressing these issues effectively, which must not be allowed to fail.

     Certainly, the EU has a long way to go, but what sort of an attitude is it that  represents this as a reason to opt out of the whole undertaking? It's not as if we haven't been provided with a clear personification of the alternative, whom one would like to think of as a kind of comic cardboard cut-out if he hadn't got so far, and who is openly contemptuous of the planet and its peoples, while committed to extracting as much wealth as possible on behalf of a small elite with no heed for the cost. It is an alternative which is much more present than we would have expected or have liked to think!

     In marching for an 'Open Britain' this Saturday, I for one will also be marching for the future of my grandchildren in every sense. Now is the time to combine the energies of all those determined to play their part as best they can in the Great Transition to a more just and sustainable future, a future of cooperation rather than competition, of peace rather than war, of hope rather than despair.

     If you cannot march, you might consider making a contribution to the People's Vote crowdfunding. It is hardly necessary at this stage to reiterate the reasons why Mrs May's idea that 'the People's Will' must be implemented, regardless of what they now think after the billions of words that have been uttered and the political chaos that has ensued since the 2016 referendum, is absurd. However, for a good paper on the way ahead, see:- 
 https://www.peoples-vote.uk/how_it_could_happen
     

At a Time Like This...

There are certain truths that have a particularly hard time making themselves heard; they are so troublesome that by mutual agreement we avoid facing up to them as long as possible. However, the Spirit of Truth keeps pushing, till eventually the only way forward is to acknowledge them. One such truth is that the Irish border is a gerrymander and an offence to both geography and natural justice. It is a dangerous truth that cannot be left to violent men, just because those of us committed to non-violence are too timid to speak it out.

     Curiously enough, it was by looking at the matter through the eyes of an Anglo-Irish landlord from West Donegal that I first began to see the matter this way. His name was Jimmy Hamilton, he was a good sailing friend of my father's, and we used to have great chats in our wee boats, back from France in Rye Harbour  with their cargoes of duty-free booze in the 1960s.* His father had had one of the first cars in West Donegal, and they had to go to Derry, their 'big town', to get petrol for it.

     The father's brother was murdered while having his hair cut in Ardara, home in his British army uniform during the Troubles. After that things were never the same again, and the father took to drink. The son carried his golden memories of growing up in that lovely land to his grave, but never went back. His sister, however, did, in the 1970s, when after many years working in London as a nurse, she finally married the sweetheart of her youth, a Catholic who had been in the IRA, and they settled down together at last on his farm near Portnoo. By such people was peace eventually reestablished, with the help of that wonderful political arrangement known as the Good Friday Agreement, made possible by the E.U..

     One hopes that the world is finally catching up with the fact that the more layers to an identity, the richer it becomes. What is an identity? A way of looking at life, I say - a language to interpret it. To be catholic is to be constantly striving to see things through other people's eyes. The more diverse the languages one can understand, the more tools one has to orientate oneself, and the better one's 'fix', just as a sailor takes his bearings from as many and as widely spread points of reference as he can; but he has to be very sure that, in the fog, he is not mistaking one tower for another!

     From time to time, I find myself trying to persuade Europeans that the English are indeed capable of looking at things with European eyes; that they are not, as General de Gaulle used to argue, simply incapable of being anything but a drag on the European project. I'm not sure how committed he was himself, anyway, with his 'Europe des Patries'. Granted that one does have, first of all, to stand one's own ground, and that otherwise one will hardly be capable of comprehending and respecting other people's,  then one must go on to realise that one's own ground is actually but 'a part of the Maine', to use John Donne's phrase. 

     Nigel Farrage has on occasion, when being praised as the 'father of Brexit', humbly deferred to King Henry VIII as the real one. Just why it should have happened that falling out with the Catholic Church and claiming some kind of 'higher authority' for the Bible should have led the British, and then the Americans, to appropriate the Hebrew mantle of a 'chosen race', who are entitled to occupy the lands of other peoples, is a bit of a mystery. Such a tendency has of course surfaced in many other guises, but it happens that Ulster constituted an outstanding example - so the natives were chased and the rich land was 'planted'. 

     When the remnant in the wild and rocky parts became too troublesome, a border was concocted simply on the basis of holding onto as much of the planted territory as possible. It is not 'Ulster', for three counties are excluded. It is a misnomer to call it 'the North', since the northern point of Ireland is in Donegal. Of course, borders are always fractures in human solidarity, but if there were to be a border in Ireland that made any sense, it would simply cut across from Carlingford Lough to Donegal Bay, instead of making a big loop round Co Monaghan, and then when it does nearly reach the West coast, trailing back up to Derry. If one seeks to build some kind of self-governing province in northern Ireland, as least it should be on the basis of a nine county Ulster - a fairly impractical idea, unless it be perhaps possible in the context of a strongly developed federal Europe.

     Anyone who wants to see it, anyone who has no stake in denying it, can see it. It is too late to undo the past, but it is not too late to stop digging the hole; if actual integration is too difficult, at least we can persist in the project of coexisting in peace; then, who knows what Time will accomplish? Meanwhile, let us all learn how to enjoy the rich multi-layered identities that actually correspond to the reality of what we are - citizens of the Universe, the World, Europe, Great Britain, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Ulster, Germany, France. Spain,  Ballymagosh and all the rest!

*You can read more about it all by delving into dispatches. especially those From the Fractal Frontier in this blog.

     

Ash Wednesday Again.

Nothing unusual about this Irish March weather anyway; it is boisterous, chilly and wet, but with the day lengthening and the sun strengthening, when he does manage to break through the scudding clouds. It was much more pleasant here in February, I am told, and it certainly was in Alcobaça, where I stayed for my last trip to Portugal; it is nearer to our premises at Fervença than Nazaré, and for most practical purposes, more useful.

     It is also a delightful town, especially around the massive old Cistercian monastery. However, they rather spoilt it as I was leaving, in the name of a pre-Lent Carnival, so I came home at a good time. There were massive loud speakers blaring ghastly music all over the place, and lines of kids in fancy costumes who somehow gave the impression of being dragooned into 'enjoying themselves'. I failed to detect any real spontaneous upwelling of joy. Maybe I'm an old curmudgeon, but I'm somewhat allergic to that kind of thing, especially in old Catholic cultures, when they keep up a form of religion but have largely lost the content. Real joy depends on some sort of brush with the Divine, but when the salt loses its flavour.... 

     So much for a couple of hundred years of rationalism! The massive Abbey church was always meant to be austere, and was desecrated by Napoleonic troops, but one would have thought they might have got around to at least some Stations of the Cross on the bare stone walls. If I had the money I would try to get them some Thompson ones. Thank God for the women I came across saying the rosary in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and at least a surprisingly large crowd at Mass on Sunday. But where were the youngsters?

     Quite apart from the existential threats hanging over their future, I really fear for their personal spiritual health. Where are they going to find joy in life, and the will to overcome those threats? What is going to keep them interested in the human project, and inspired to accept the challenge of the future? No wonder that all over the developed world, more and more people are getting depressed and relying on drugs to keep going. How can this trajectory be turned round?

March garden.

     On a cold March day in Sherkin, the very lack of comfort forces one to dig deep to maintain the will to live, and that's all part of its advantage! But when I am away from home in Portugal, and though I very much appreciate Portuguese food, I do miss the home-grown vegetables, picked straight from the garden. Hey-ho, it's coming to life again; not that I bother with much 'deep digging' there any more. Fiona and I have kept an organic vegetable garden for nearly half a century now.  It is all part of that which keeps us committed to our home on Sherkin Island. Without making a huge deal about it, it is amazing how much food can be produced from a very small area. The crucial thing, of course, is the fertility of the soil.

     In spite of accepting the principle all those years ago in Somerset, I think it is only lately that I have really adopted the organic approach, and at the same time abandoned the attempt, even the desire, to remove all the weeds. They call it continuous cover – just cut them and leave them there to rot, preferably covered with some kind of mulch, and anyway don’t be afraid to adopt the ‘wheat and tares’ attitude. So long as they are not choked and overcome, plants thrive in company, like most things, while the soil thrives with continuous cover.

     It took a long time to change my basic approach. I used to start from the intent of getting what I wanted out of the ground. Nowadays my starting point is to husband its fertility. Of course I am very lucky that I can basically leave to Fiona the business of coaxing out of it what we need. It’s a good question whether all this stuff about organic living, the transition to a carbon free society and so on, really does hang together with the kind of spiritual revolution we all so desperately need?

     In my blog last week, I threw out the phrase ‘organic politics’. Afterwards I found myself asking whether it really stacks up? Well, in politics also, our approach has tended to be based on the assumption that we and our lot know what is best and has to happen, and must overcome all those ‘weeds’ who resist us. The approach has been that of the farmer who sprays with weed-killer, killing everything, before he plants his crop – far from the holistic approach of thinking first of the soil’s well-being, and then, in harmony with that, in humility, coax it into yielding a harvest.

     There is of course a religious dimension to this transition; in fact perhaps religious consciousness has led the way. When we really encountered people outside our own box, it became clear that it just won’t do to insist that our religion is right and everyone else’s is wrong. But such an attitude does not necessarily imply mere relativism. I as a Catholic am free to believe that ultimately the Catholic Faith is uniquely not just reconcilable with all other positive spiritual aspirations, but actually able to offer them fulfillment, which is why it is catholic and potentially universal.

     This is not to say that at this moment in history we have the Whole Truth, all wrapped up, while the others are going nowhere. No, they are very likely ahead of us in some respects, and we can learn from them, and expect that the ultimate fulfillment will draw on all the spiritual gifts and insights of humanity. The way ahead for all of us is to dive ever deeper into the Mystery, while each must jump from the ground on which they stand! A religion that stops short of that plunge into Mystery, insisting on staying on its own ground while refusing to acknowledge others, is a form of idolatry that will die away. It is actually diametrically opposed to the conviction that all good things come from one true God, and will return to Him.

      As for politics, the notion that our Party or Ideology is right and others are wrong is going nowhere. Does this imply a wishy-washy liberalism, with ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ forever equally valid? No, we have to make decisions and stand our ground when necessary; this calls for, first of all, the insistence on one’s own inner voice and experience, but also a continuous and rigorous self examination of our conscience. This will also lead us to respect the conscience and the experience of others.

     Unfortunately, it is very rare for our long years of education to equip us for this most vital task. In fact much of what passes for education seems to be expressly designed to stifle and ignore it, to condition young people to accept the service of some deadly monoculture rather than the cultivation of a rich and creative garden; and unfortunately there are reasons to fear that the internet, instead of opening us to others, is actually tending to reinforce the pressure to deliver what is expected of us. Little ground is left for dialogue, for mutual service and mutual enrichment. What would a politics look like that took such principles seriously?

     Perhaps, just perhaps, we are beginning to see it, all through Europe and by no means least in the United Kingdom. The notion that one can achieve freedom by cutting oneself off, defending one’s own bit of ground to the last, king in one’s own castle, is being defended so shrilly because the tide is washing it away. A politics is possibly emerging that is based on considering first of all the state of the ground, and then of growing our own crop in a spirit of dialogue, of mutual respect and consideration both for the earth and for other people’s crops, not to mention their flowers!

     

     

     

The Transition to a Low-carbon Economy (and Organic Politics).

New toy for Alec!

There was precious little sign of the much vaunted 'transition to a low-carbon economy' in the Lisbon Boat Show, which Alec and I visited yesterday - it was mostly rows of flashy speed-boats, complete with monstrous fuel guzzling outboards. Flying around in their bubbles of thrills and self-regard, it seems that the moneyed people have yet to begin to modify their lifestyles, with the very odd honourable exception such as the SunConcept solar boat builders from Olhão, who at least had a stand there.

The only actual electric boat on show was a brilliant solar boat, a project from the Engineering Faculty of the University of Lisbon. Alec and I are betting that it will be a very different story in a year or two, and all those complicated and dirty gas-guzzlers will be looking very silly.
Meanwhile, Hooray for the children who are pointing out that the emperor has lost his clothes; while the adults run around in circles chasing after vanities, we are all in danger of losing the essential goods of a liveable environment and civilisation. Instead of obsessing with symbols of status and suchlike distractions, we would do better to concentrate on the needful priorities,  such as:-

• Getting out of dependency on fossil fuels and into the sustainable applications of electric power. Apart from all the other advantages, I cannot wait for a world where the noise of engines is hushed!
• Feeding and amusing  ourselves (getting the bread and circuses) without abusing the natural world and animals; halting pollution, reversing desertification (on both land and sea), developing sustainable fishing techniques, using organic methods of food production, also in building materials and the promotion of ‘the circular economy’.
• Prioritising communication, disarmament, dialogue and mutual trust, which are anyway conditions for applying ourselves to and cooperating in the above tasks; and by the way, they start within our own selves, listening to and trusting the little voice that's there, in peace and quiet. 

Such roughly speaking is the agenda that I have in mind for the Nazaré Project, but for all the urgency, it is something that will have to develop in its own time, while we get on with trying to develop our electric drives. But it's good to keep the big picture in view, while after all it is more from actually doing things like this, rather than strikes and demonstrations and what mostly passes for 'politics', that change will come.

Not to say but we do need political change, in which respect, how wonderful it is that the sorry saga of Brexit seems to be doing some good; - even possibly breaking that dreadful political set-up in England which has for many years forced politicians to suppress their own consciences, and voters to choose between two tyrannical so-called majorities, neither of which I for one was ever happy with. Now, since they seem hooked on that referendum idea, we just have to hope they can find their way to another vote, and produce a more informed edition of 'the Will of the People'!

Made in England!

'Made In England' had a magic about it, once upon a time, when I was a boy. Besides the rugged simplicity and efficiency of the Gardner engines that I used to have in my fishing boats, they even had a certain elegance about them. There was a thrill to the sound of those big cylinders firing up early in the morning. That's what comes of a cultural moment when people's minds have a decent degree of harmony with physical reality, when you may even find an intellectual and a worker in one and the same person; when an artefact is a genuine statement, people being aware of the play of spirit within matter.

     

Photo by Fiona.

The daffodils are bravely blooming here in Sherkin, while in Nazaré work has started again on the Anna M. Alec and I are inching our way towards actually getting our hands on some of these Lynch electric motors. They too are actually made in England, so let’s hope they don’t find themselves up against a tariff barrier soon! The risks that are being taken with what is left of manufacturing there boggles the mind. 

     One might not be surprised at the Tories - they are long gone down the road of being far more interested in money from one or another kind of manipulation than from making things - but it is sad that the leader of the Labour Party doesn’t seem to have much of a clue about it either. I fear he is too much of an ideologue, who has never produced much besides cabbages.  How on earth can he end up on the same page as Messrs Farage, Rees-Mogg and Johnson? If Brexit goes through, it is sad that he will bear a large share of the responsibility. 

     Surely he realises that Brexit has provided ideal cover and distraction from the multiple disaster that has been brewing for many long years in Britain, but he has singularly failed to make the connection and blow that cover away. Deflecting the blame on Johnny Foreigner, the oldest trick in the book, seems to be prevailing again.

      There is a confusion at the heart of our culture that contributes to the smoke. We are urged to believe in ‘liberal values’ without them ever being defined, other than by a vague canon of political correctness. This is supposed to be very different from the ‘neo-liberalism’ that we also hear a lot about; however they both stem from the Enlightenment and the great project of making ‘setting the individual free to do his thing’ the supreme value, a project that is rapidly running out of road. Unfortunately they thought they could fly straight to freedom, leaving the physical ground of life behind. I know no more gentle, tender and effective reminder that we can do no such thing than that simple little wooden Madonna, said to be carved by St Joseph himself, under our noses in the Sanctuario at Nazaré. It tells us how God came to us through the messy physical business of being born a human infant, and then grew up in the very down-to-earth environment of a simple carpenter's workshop.

     Yet we will have to become a lot more tough minded if we are not to be overwhelmed by the problems ahead, and the sooner we set about it, the better chance there is of doing so without violence - though any organism, in order to survive, has to be prepared to defend itself. I would not recommend the approach of the British Minister of Defence, playing with his new toys, aircraft carriers, drones, perhaps some of those nice new tactical nuclear weapons that the Ducky is happily deploying - ‘Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass.’ says Mr Williamson. Blimey, to think of an overgrown schoolboy like that in charge of such things! But how is the EU to strongly find that different voice?

     For a start, with the elections coming up in May, the European Parliament should find a way of making sure it only will accept members who come in good faith - not those who come with the specific intention of disrupting and destroying. The time has come to face down the likes of Mr Farage. It should be quite possible to require some statement of good faith to which the likes of him could be held, on pain of being thrown out.

     If the Pope and the Grand Imam can produce one, surely the European Parliament should be able to do so as well! Indeed not a few of their words might provide a starting point, such as the declaration of their 'adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard…. ’ Amen!

Pope Francis embraces the Grand Imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque -AFP 

Big Waves in Nazaré.

1/02/2019, Nazaré, courtesy of Jerry Ascione.

     It is a premise of this blog that the restless sea holds a stunningly accurate mirror to the vagaries of human consciousness – a sea upon which we struggle to navigate here and there both in big ships and in our own little boats, while Catholics hope eventually to sail off into the Big Blue Beyond aboard the Barque of Peter. Meanwhile the waves roll this way and that, now peacefully lulling us, now jostling unpleasantly against each other, now exploding in collision with some stubborn rock.

    It is usually only the top of the waves that we actually see, with little clue of the power that lurks in them. As they roll along on the wide ocean, their power is concealed in the circulation beneath the surface. It is an interesting fact that deep down, like a wheel, the wave is actually rotating opposite to the direction of travel. Eventually that water comes back to the surface, unless the whole process is interrupted by land. Then we may see its power indeed, even if it's rather late to do anything constructive with it!

     The wave’ of fashionable ideas is supposed in the West to be that of liberalism. I find even in casual conversation with younger people, as encountered in the Nazaré Hostel and mainly here to look at the waves, a strong counter-current. I suppose it eases the anxiety within, to watch those waves crashing on the shore. Meanwhile a 30 year-old Frenchmen regrets that ‘we seem to be losing the ability to marry – when people come up against problems, they just walk away’, while a lady gynecologist states that ‘she has never met a woman, who has had an abortion, who does not regret it.’ What goes round come round, and let's hope this wave comes round sooner rather than later!

     The wave of Brexit seems to be in danger of smashing into a cliff, but however I would point to a very obvious, but apparently unrecognised, little channel that could just carry them past the rocks. The House of Commons has after all concluded that the only thing which is impeding Mrs May’s famous agreement now is that pesky Irish backstop to prevent a hard border in Ireland. All sorts of improbable solutions have been mentioned, but not the obvious one that is staring everyone in the face, namely to do away with the border altogether. Anyway it was only a gerrymander in the first place, as everyone knows, and there is now every possibility of a majority even in the Six Counties who would vote for reunity. After all the Six Counties voted very convincingly to stay in the EU. To have credibility, Ulster should comprise all the nine counties, and that should really be the basis of any vote.

     My 'go-to' for what's up in Westminster, John Grace in the Guardian, writes candidly and movingly about his own struggles with anxiety today. You should have a read of 'The Devastation of Human Life is in View' while you are there. Go towards your fear might help with anxiety, but to get over it, you do need to do something about it. Physical, practical things can help, but this is when they really do have to be meaningful, relating to the threat.

     Meanwhile, Alec is delighted to find a few miles of land between himself and the sea, while getting his workshop splendidly organised. The Porto de Abrigo was officially closed yesterday, for only the second time since it was constructed. It’s generally one of the very few harbours on this West coast of Portugal that doesn’t close in bad weather. I’m going home for a fortnight on Tuesday, and will be hoping to get stuck into the Anna M again when I come back.

     Some readers get puzzled at the way I jump from one thing to another. I reply that the great wave of disintegration, of trying to cope with life by divvying it up into little compartments, is surely crashing into the rocks. It is in this direction, the direction of a new relationship between people, with their work, with nature, in short, with God, that we may look for hope!

     

Nazaré's Broad Beach Yesterday.

The Structure of the Nazaré Project.

January 2019, Dawn over Horseshoe Bay, Ger Kavanagh.

Back to base on Sherkin with Fiona after our Christmas travels, I was busy making a big press cum wardrobe there, which herself has been wanting for years. I had to make up to her for heading off again so soon! Lately I seem to have mislaid the ability to live quietly at home for too long. Perhaps I never had it, but disguised this restlessness in sailing, when I was able to do so. The sea soothes one by bringing chaos down to relatively manageable proportions, with which it is possible to grapple, while at the same time it does undermine the walls with which we habitually try to erect to contain that chaos. With the Anna M laid up, I found my mind more exposed to the mounting crisis of our world.

Stephen Grosz, in the book I mentioned in my last blog, talks about how some people in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre saved their lives by getting out when the North Tower was hit and the fire alarms went off – they had a quarter of an hour to do so – while more, for one reason or another, did not. Apparently some just went on queuing for food! If you have any grasp of what is happening - of, as Allan Savary puts it, ‘the tsunami bearing down on us’ - you have little choice but to see if you can do something about it! 

One would think it was a fairly simple decision, to get out of that sky-scraper, but apparently not. We have a huge resistance to leaving our track! Considering all the pressures on us, I suppose this has to be – yet it is fatal to be so committed to the little compartment we have hacked out for ourselves that we close our eyes to what is happening around us. The integration of all the various aspects of our lives is, on the contrary, the name of the game that leads to salvation, especially from a catholic point of view.

This is the very process of achieving integrity, and that family of qualities whose interconnectedness is revealed by language itself – wholeness, health and holiness in English being all from the same root, and then there is saint, sane (eng.) sainteté, sain, santé (fr.), santidad, salud (esp.), saúde (pt.) etc. It always amuses me to see what different languages do with the same basic word, in this case sanctus in latin! All of which does not prevent some people from questioning the very idea of integrity – the very possibility of reconciling all the warring factors of our make-up, both within and without, personal, social, spiritual and the rest.

I suppose the problem is that the idea of integration ends up requiring belief in one loving God – otherwise whatever way we set about achieving it will mean that we irrevocably end up losing our own personal integrity, becoming less than a human person, a mere cog in some great machine. One recalls the famous saying 'Lord, make me holy, but not yet!' What the achievement of integrity most certainly will  require is the sacrifice of our individual ego, hence the inescapable necessity and transcendent significance of the Cross....

I have come rather a long way from what I meant to write about, sitting at a big round table in the spacious office of our new premises in Portugal. Today the sky is blue and the sun is pouring in the big south-facing window, with a charming view across a field of pear trees to a line of wooded hills. Alec and I find ourselves somewhat in a position that I have seen recommended for entrepreneurs - Ready, Fire, Take Aim - not the usual order of things! What - between spells of cleaning the place up - I particularly want to get my head around is:-

Structuring the Relationships Between the Various Participants in The Nazaré Project.

This project arose from conversations between myself, Alec Lammas, John Aston and relations and friends, as to how they could make a contribution to the transition to sustainability that is vital for the world, particularly in the application of electric power, and indeed as the sine qua non of ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ - for it is sadly possible that civilisation will fail before this is accomplished, rather as the Roman civilisation did on the threshold of the First Industrial Revolution that harnessed steam power, so that Europe only eventually industrialised over a millennium later.

Alec has to make a living and to this end has set up a company, David Alexander Lammas Unipessoal Lda, which we are calling DALU for present purposes; with some little help from myself wearing my Nazaré Project cap, he is currently fitting out a large modern workshop with space for multiple projects and also recruiting 3 staff. It is at Fervença, near Valado dos Frades, on the old road between Nazaré and Alcobaça in Portugal. He intends to specialise in electric drives both at sea and on land; he holds a concession to sell Lynch Electric Motors in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland. He has plans to innovate particularly in the use of a sailing vessel’s propeller to recharge her batteries, and has applied for research and development funding from the EU Portugal 2020 scheme. Whether this application succeeds will be known in March.

I have documented my activities in recent years in the Gannetswaysailing blog, as I sailed up and down the Gannetsway between Scotland and the south of Spain in the 50 year-old wooden schooner Anna M. This again is our ‘home territory’, comprising Ireland where I am based, France, Spain and Portugal, and such components of the UK that may so desire. Both Alec and myself are originally from England, but I am an Irish citizen and Alec is becoming a Portuguese one. We would of course be supportive of Brits who are likewise committed Europeans, which in this part of the world seems an indispensable starting point from which to address the challenges we face!

What is to be the financial relationship between them all going forward? As things stand, Alec is the main investor in DALU, while small investments have also been made by myself and by Gerard Kavanagh, on the basis of helping the startup under The Nazaré Project banner. Also under this banner, the somewhat quixotic undertaking of restoring the Anna M has made a substantial contribution to Alec’s ability to get DALU off the ground. It is hoped that, with European research funds, DALU will in turn enable the Anna M to achieve a new lease of life as a research and sales platform for its marine electric drives.

Meanwhile the Gannetswaysailing blog will continue to give an account of our progress, and the Nazaré Project will continue to provide a context, to seek investors and provide support for DALU and perhaps other business enterprises, as well as more cultural and aesthetic projects such as the restoration of Anna M, which nonetheless may turn out to have important practical contributions to make. We are actively seeking to extend that synchronicity which has undoubtedly attended our efforts so far!

On Oysters and Paranoia.

Staying with our Bella on Guernsey, and having both friends and neighbours on Sherkin and a brother-in-law in County Clare who farm oysters, Fiona and I were delighted to meet Bella’s friends Penny and Mark Dravers of Guernsey Sea Farms, and to be given a

Mark Dravers

fascinating guided tour of their oyster hatchery. A piquancy is added by the fact that the Murphys on Sherkin used to get their spat from here, and the story of why they no longer do so is curious.

Algal soup for oyster spat.

Fortunately there seems to be no lack of alternative markets, but the Guernsey Sea Farm is suffering from the odd fact that their spat has not been exposed to the disease which has ravaged the French stocks and also much of the Irish stock. The result is that they have no immunity, and whereas French spat are liable to losses of 80% due to the disease, the Guernsey spat is liable to be wiped out if exposed to it.

Millions of baby oysters.

Mark complains, quite rightly, that it was very irresponsible to allow French spat into Ireland, and indeed of the EU committee responsible not to have certified the disease and closed down all movement of infected oysters, as would be the case with foot and mouth disease, for example. He says they were leaned on by the massive French oyster industry to put their interests ahead of the scientific fact of this disease.

It is rather a classic case of the old English beef that the Continentals only face facts when it suits them, and when they are forced to acknowledge facts, only take the necessary regulations seriously when this suits them. Meanwhile the poor old English, not to mention Irish, are compelled to respect the regulations, and being in the main law-abiding folk are indeed inclined to do so, unlike those anarchistic and arrogant French!

While allowing a degree of truth in all this, let's examine the difference between the Germanic and Latin approaches. As someone who has pretensions to help reconcile these, I have to say that there may be just something to be said for the French approach, along the following lines: - Everyone acknowledges that the transmission of the disease is not the automatic result of exposure to it. After all, we know that it is exacerbated by factors such as stress from over-stocking. We have already also observed that stocks can build up a measure of immunity. What’s more, it is highly questionable whether it is in fact possible to eradicate such a disease by the usual preventive measures. Perhaps, while not neglecting measures to prevent the spread of the disease, we should also be trying to find ways of building up immunity?

I shall pass up the opportunity to expound the principles of homeopathy, and before the scientific fundamentalists of this world start jumping up and down, let me add that whatever way one finds to get through such problems, they must be based on rigorous respect for scientific facts - an infectious

Oyster eggs dividing under the electronic mycrosope.

disease for example is just that - as well as for other facts that don’t suit our current state of scientific knowledge, and above all on maximising our respect for other people who see things differently, a difficult undertaking at the best of times!

I have picked up an excellent book here at Bella’s - ‘The Examined Life’, by Stephen Grosz, a psychoanalyst. In a discussion of paranoia, he refers to another book, ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’, in which Paul Fussell 'documents soldiers’ widespread conviction that the farmers were directing the German guns to British emplacements.' He quotes Fussell ‘In both wars it was widely believed but never, so far as I know, proved that French, Belgian or Alsatians living just behind the line signaled the distant German artillery by fantastically elaborate, shrewd, and accurate means.’

Grosz comments that ‘It is less painful, it turns out, to feel betrayed than to feel forgotten.’  He depicts paranoia as an at times necessary defence against the more catastrophic sense of being isolated, alone, powerless and forgotten. The feeling of being hated shielded his patient from ‘the catastrophe of indifference’.

It all resonates with the current state of mind of some Brexiteers that I have encountered. They somehow manage to blame the chaos and mess of the current state of the British body politic on the EU in general and often President Juncker in particular. That gentleman’s name even vaguely recalls, without of course their acknowledging it, a type of German Second World War bomber. First step to undoing the knot - call out the paranoia, get rid of it!

We have come rather a long way from oysters.

Breeding stock - same lot, different environment.

It is amazing how one thing can lead to another! I shall come back to Guernsey, and a letter I just wrote to the Editor of The Guernsey Post. I am agreeably surprised that they have printed it. In a hotel bar here I found, besides the Post, the following Daily papers:- Telegraph, Express and Mail. Some kinds of paranoia run very deep, - but there may be a big change coming to Guernsey - part of a bigger breakthrough that may come out of all the Brexit grief! Here is my letter:-

Britain’s ongoing saga of ‘taking back control’, threatening turmoil and chaos on all sides as exemplified in your lead story today (8th January), is of intense concern to all its neighbours, and to none more so than the Channel Islands, perched just off the Continental coast. Like my own Irish countrymen, you had no opportunity to participate in the much-vaunted democratic process that brought it about. At this crucial juncture, you should consider what is truly in your interest and make your voice heard.

I have been coming here for sixty years, and have a daughter and three teenage grandchildren here. They like all their generation are facing a world with huge possibilities and also massive challenges, indeed as all widely respected authorities have stated, existential threats to the very future of civilisation. If these are to be overcome, and if Europeans are to be able to assert themselves and thrive in a world dominated by the likes of China and Mr Trump’s USA and their massive corporations, it is essential that we work together.

On page three of your paper today, we find the statement from Deputy Peter Roffey that UK immigration plans ‘could spell disaster for our economy’. Guernsey is by no means alone, and in the process very many people of all kinds are threatened with having their life options grossly curtailed. I have an English grandnephew who is threatened with a £21,000 bill for a year’s tuition in Spain that was going to cost £1500 within the EU.

Whence comes this monstrous desire to deprive those who consider themselves European of their rights and the many opportunities on this great Continent? Their essentially thuggish nature has just been demonstrated outside the Westminster Parliament. The lie is given to their commitment to democracy by their opposition to another referendum, in today’s much more informed circumstances - not that it was ever a good way of proceeding, being in Clement Atlee’s words ‘alien to all our traditions and beloved of fascist dictators’.

The value of the EU has been demonstrated in Ireland by the successful peace process under its auspices. Those who want to be Irish and those who would rather consider themselves British can cooperate and get on with life as best they may. Likewise, there need be no opposition between those who want to be British and those who consider themselves European. In fact the various identities complement and enrich each other.

However, confronted with a choice between facing the future and digging oneself into a bunker, there comes a point when this choice cannot be evaded. Such a time is now. I suggest that the Channel Islands would do well to announce their intention of getting together and applying to join the EU as an independent entity, and a great future would open up for you thereby.

Such a statement would also send a powerful message across the Channel!

Photos by Fiona.

At the Still Point of a Turning World.

Some of us, at least, and by no means necessarily the well-to-do types, are privileged at the turning of the year to enjoy a relaxation of the  steely grip that the world generally holds on us. There is a pause, a moment's quiet, as one year begins to fade into the Past, and a new one opens before us. Some people of course are merely filled with panic by the merest passing glimpse into the abyss that surrounds our lives, and rush to fill it with even more inebriation than they generally employ, in trying to maintain their tenuous engagement with life; let us hope rather for a blessed occasion to stand back, give a bit of quality time to the relationships that matter to us, and focus anew on what is important to us, even as Mrs May recommends.

What will the New Year bring? The prospects have been stormy, and the same old problems will still be there, but when for a moment we get off our high horses, is there any real chance of joining the shepherds in glimpsing the new hope offered in that stable in Bethlehem? But why does it have to be in a stable? Is there any hope for those of us, such as I have to admit myself on this occasion, who have spent the holidays in a very fine house?

View from our bedroom window, by Fiona..

It was not something that might have been expected, when Fiona and I came to live in a leaking two-roomed cottage and a small caravan in Glencolmcille, back in 1973. Not that it didn't have its blessings, including as Big John had it 'the best water in Ireland', which we called Braide wine as we drank it a simple Christmas feast there. Anyway, the three wise men or kings, or whatever they were, were on their way. One of our daughters married a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, with a famous big house in County Wicklow, which is where we were this Christmas.

Whether one spends it in a big house or a humble cottage does not of course determine  the actual happiness of the occasion, and of course the big house was designed to run with an army of servants, long gone now, so despite the mechanical conveniences of life these days, running it entails a great deal of hard work. Nonetheless it was very pleasurable to sit down in the grand dining room with twenty members of the family.

The fine portrait paintings on the walls of previous generations evoke a sense of family continuity, and the formal rooms lend a certain dignity to life that, hopefully, enhances the human interactions which they sustain. So also do the sculpted views from the windows, and the magnificent tree-scapes backed  by glimpses of Wicklow's gentle mountain peaks

It is all a far cry from the 'self-made' wealth that is more generally approved of these days, but truly, if the genuine fruits of wealth are to be enjoyed, if the persona  of wise men and kings are to be truly reconciled, does it not have to be admitted that it is more likely to happen by way of inheritance than 'merited' by what passes for hard work and talent these days? Isn't wealth likely to be better used in hands into which it simply fell, than in those of people who thrust aside their fellows, used them in fact, in order to grasp it?

It is the very will to power and wealth that makes it so difficult to perceive and understand what lies outside its scope, to get off one's high horse now and again, to maintain honesty, integrity, a true sense of justice, respect for others and for nature. I genuinely have zero nostalgia for the past, but it does seem we may have to take some inspiration from unfashionable aspects of it, if we are to succeed in overhauling our ideas of democracy and make it fit for purpose again.

I spent over an hour looking at the carry-on in the House of Commons before Christmas. My default source of information on British politics is John Crace's Politics Sketch*  in the Guardian. I wanted to see if it really was as bad as he makes out. Actually I thought it was worse. In response to all sorts of real concerns, Mrs May just kept on repeating her line about carrying out the will of the British people.  I didn't see anyone nail that one with the simple fact that, even if one (unlike myself) accepts that there may be any such thing as the will of the people, and that the referendum result delivered it, that result was delivered under the leadership of gentlemen like Messrs Boris Johnson and Nigel Farrage who now repudiate her version of it. Mrs May is either deluded or downright dishonest, I hesitate to say which, in her claim to be delivering 'the decision of the people', and frankly one might say the same of a great deal that passes itself off as democracy these days.

British politics are fascinating at present because they are giving expression to profound cultural problems that our Irish politics are merely skirting over. Frankly contemporary Ireland is somewhat inflated with the capital of a handful of American corporations that exercise a deadening grip on our culture. I look to a long game of counter-balancing that influence through the European project; not being inclined to cultural warfare, I just have to hope it is not mere laziness that leaves me happy to chip away in my own little way, and grateful if I succeed in continuing to do so in 2019! 

*https://www.theguardian.com/politics/series/the-politics-sketch