Category: Commentary

This week we heard '…White British boys from poorer backgrounds are more likely than other social groups to perform badly at school…' That was according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A disturbing announcement I feel but something I knew already. In fact I have been anticipating this for nearly 40 years.
The only reason why more than 40 years ago the subject would not have hit the headlines is because there would have been no discrimination between the colour of skin in an educational report of the time. There would be no need, the predominant skin colour of our schoolchildren in the 1950s and early 1960s would have been white anyway.
In 2007, the fact that 'White Boys' as they put it, are falling behind in the educational stakes is a overt sign of the truisms of our society; a British society that has not been able to cope with itself as it has tended towards the formation of multi-cultural roots. Our lives have been enriched by this move, but many among us seem not to be able to either see that or indeed accept the fact that Britain has changed forever.
This development has been exacerbated by the metropolitan/provincial differences within society. The fact that most cities have developed their social mix across different cultural roots has left behind the provincial towns and especially the villages, to come to terms with multiculturalism all by themselves. Or, in most cases, to ignore it and to even defend against it. Racial tension never starts in the villages, but it is their inhabitants that become the cheer leaders for their white majority populations
So what has all this to do with Geno Washington and the Class of '66?
As I stated above, I have anticipated this divide within our educational system for many years now and have been pondering my own experiences and the experiences of some of my old class mates that left our school in 1966. The proof as they say is in the eating
The first problem I faced was finding some of my class mates to compare notes! Having travelled widely within the UK for the last forty years I have not kept in touch with many other than two girls I have remained very good friends.
'Friends United' was the obvious choice and it proved fruitful once you got beyond the obvious lies some people put against their names as their status. The high proportion of my contacts of '66 that claim to be IT Managers is wildly beyond any reasonable statistic for IT managers in the UK. After all, 50% of the population are not IT managers are they? To even the score, I insisted on putting myself down as 'a dosser living on handouts and discarded M&S sandwiches'. Having completed my social levelling act I was then taken by one boy that I was quite close to at the time. If his 'cv' was to be believed he actually rose to the dizzy heights of the music business and I was both sceptical and impressed at the same time.
So I set out to trace this friend of old and to catch up on the truth as we both saw it. If what I had read was true, it confirmed my suspicion the 'white boy' of old was more than able and willing to succeed in the world. Now it may not seem out of the ordinary to you, the reader, but what I have not told you so far is that the school we both attended was a secondary modern for 11+ failures and we were not supposed to achieve great heights having been discarded onto the scrap heap of the UK's educational system.
I eventually made contact through the email system and it turned out to be true. My friend had made good and had lived his dream. You see, we had when we were both about 15 or so, got the bug of black music and by our later teens we were both attending Geno Washington and other black music gigs in our hometown and in the murky atmosphere of the Soho all-nighter. The difference between us was that my friend went on to become a highly regarded DJ of black music and a record producer to boot. For myself, blues & soul remained within my heart and serves me to this day in a more metaphorical sort of way.
We conversed on email for several days, being several hundred miles apart, and it served to uncover yet another one of our '66 days, and yet another highly recognised DJ, though with tendencies towards heavy rock and currently working for an off-shoot of Virgin Radio. It takes all sorts I suppose.
Now I had the notion that if 50% of the class of '66 were IT mangers and the other half all became DJ's and it was I that was the odd one out. After all, all I had achieved was follow a career in science and introduce a prize-winning range of environmental monitors, becoming managing director of two companies and, in a later incarnation, rose to what I thought were the dizzy heights of the IT industry in the city of London. (hence the dosser story to complete the balancing act and to avoid the accusation of being a liar!!).
Some of class '66 'white boys' had bulked the system then. They had made good and achieved their dreams. Against all odds it seems, and as 'white boys' we did it with more than a little assistance from our black cousins, cousins that worked with us directly in the recording studios, provided the music that held us together it times of need and informed our music for generations to come. Now those 'cousins' live amongst us and it appears achieve better educational results than some 'white boys'.
Well good luck to them I say and may they too achieve their dreams and look back in forty years time and consider their roots as so important and inspirational as I do mine.
If the report in forty years time states '..some boys..' have failed, leaving out colour of skin, then I, looking down from one of heaven's 'all-nighter' dance floors, will be able to say, we eventually got it right and integrated. After all, blue and yellow make green

It's been building up in me this year. First it was the sight of that great wrinkly old twit sniffing the monarch’s arse for favours and complaining how poor he might get if they didn't extend performing rights royalties from 50 to 75 years in Europe. One 'Rift Pilchard', sorry Sir Cliff Richards no less. That 'Bermondsey boy' of old. Yeah right! Richards has as much in common with south London as does Tony Blair. I.e. Jack shit!
I said it was building up!
Secondly it was all those so-called new TV series like 'New Tricks' where equally old and wrinkly has beens like Denis Waterman and yes sorry, as much as I adore her, Amanda Redman, pretend they are not beyond redemption and can still hack a 20 hour day in the office or in their cases a two hour stint in makeup before solving the unsolvable crimes of TV drama.
…and did you see George Cole in that one-off 'Diamond Geezer'? and David Attenborough in that global warming thingy on the BBC? I don’t know which of them looks most walking dead! Tooth decay and old age do not flatter let me tell you! Try radio boys, where 'it don't matter no more'.
Building, building….
And now when I thought it could not get any worse, I'm going round humming the tune to the M&S TV advert and bloggy types are asking each other 'who's that tune by old boy? It's super what!'.
So now Marks and Sparks have their 'Itchycoo Park' advert playing incessantly it seems appealing for customers to 'come buy me' their rags. It's even made YouTube no less! It's a highly successful format following on from the Cockney Rebel one they did last year 'Make Me Smile'.
I don’t mind success, I love success! I don’t really mind out of work actors making a buck or two. I wish I was one and more importantly, making a bob or two. What I have to object to is not knowing the reality behind these ads or this one in particular.
I ask the question therefore of who's making the bucks from this tune 'Itchycoo Park'? (Small Faces, Immedite 1967). It's definitely not Stevie Marriot or Ronnie Lane the two former members of the band that died young and are undoubtedly sadly missed by many. They are also the writers of ' Itchycoo Park' and their estates according to Rift the Pilchard above, should be filling the coffers to overflow on this advert's TV minute mileage. We ain't no dead poet society though. What's worse we ain't no live poet society either!
I bet my next benefit cheque that none of the Small Faces alive or dead are making dosh from this ad. They never made any when they were alive and kicking so why should I believe they are making anything now. The reality of the Small Faces is they were well screwed, along with countless other good bands in the 60's, by the management and the record companies they were foolish enough to sign away their lives with in those heady pre-Itchycoo days.
Now Stuart Rose (CEO) and his band of rag trade strutters have put together a lineup of clothes (Per Una) and market them with what can only be described as typical music industry tactics of ripping off the band and banking the proceeds no questions asked guv! Small Faces, who are they anyway? Some grubby bunch of oiks from the East End I'll be bound I can hear the M&S bean counters say, as they count the profit from every dress sold under the aegis of this TV advertising campaign.
Well let me tell you Mr Rose, you and your advertising agency are still ripping off the likes of Lane and Marriot. Think hard about your dress sales. Would you be prepared to lose money on every one you sell just because you got it wrong on the contract or you didn't understand legal ease and all you ever wanted was to write songs and make good music. Get yourself high on that fact Mr Rose. For every dress you sell you get fatter and somewhere in the rag trade someone stays poor. For every record the Small Faces sold some Arden-like management and DECCA-like record co's. got obese and the rest stayed poor. 'Itchycoo Park' of course was an Immediate records release but I still wager that cheque the band or the estates get nothing from M&S's success.
Where has that happened before you may ask? It equates to the same thing that happens every day in the rag trade. Indian and other Asian suppliers of these rags for M&S. A double whammy then. Both music and rag trade bosses get rich and for that to happen others stay poor. The way of the world.
So maybe Cliff Richards has a point after all. Extending performing rights to 75 years is a good thing. Not to protect the rich and famous like Richards of course, although I do suspect his motives here. Owning an island in the Carribbean must be expensive for the poor lad! What better way to keep the status quo of 'them n us' going than relying on the law to keep us 'East End Herbert' types out of their lives forever.
After all, oiks don’t get knighthoods do they?

Well Mrs Ritchie, it looks as though you have had your way so far. A small black child named David Banda arrived in a Johannesburg airport today destined for an onward journey to one of your UK homes no doubt. Your overnight package has arrived Ma'am. Sign here please. Did no-one tell you slavery was outlawed in the late 18th century and that England finally abolished it in the early 1800's?
What were you thinking of that day last week when a fragile young Malawian orphan was presented to you on your visit to an orphanage? Did you think you had the right to play with the lives of children just because you have money to spend? That's how you bought your art isn't it Mrs Ritchie? You just paid more than anyone else because you had it to spend. Then you stopped buying art? Something clicked inside you then. You suddenly realised that the accumulation of artefacts for artefacts sake was not such a good thing after all. That you were still an empty person, despite your wealth. You got bored didn't you Mrs Ritchie. Is that how this will end? Will you get bored and move on to something else that will guarantee your place in the media headlines?
You have clearly attempted to bypass the authorities with your bribes of cash. You have flaunted highly regarded charity’s objections against this attempted adoption. This is not a decaying oil painting by Picasso Mrs Ritchie. There is no eventual resale value and no wall on which to hang your spoils. This is the priceless life of an orphaned child with which you bargain Mrs Ritchie. African flesh and blood.
Maybe you have been away from post-colonial America too long. Maybe this is just another scheme in your long list of blasphemous stage depictions. Will we be subjected to a 'Madonna and black child' as you strut the stage of some football stadium? Is that your ploy Mrs Ritchie? Have you been visiting the English National Galleries and getting ideas from the ageing Catholic iconography that adorns the walls of the Trafalgar Square building? Are those spoils of pre-colonial self-enrichment your goals too Mrs Ritchie?
Is this your 'next big thing' Mrs Ritchie?

Today is a new day, a sunny crisp new day. I've settled by the sea, I feel at home, but then again it's not really winter yet. It's out of London, so it's fine by me if I get flooded out. At least the chances of getting bombed are near zero. I think! Time will tell. This blog will not though, be a daily account of my life. My life is not important enough. This blog will be utilised to comment on the world. My worldview.
From today I am free of the shackles of academia. I am free from 7 years of pleasing the unpleasable. Academia, the last bastion of the unreal world. But no more of that. On to business.
I will publish some of my own essays here as well as commenting on the world, but for today I want to concentrate on the latest manifestation of ideological partiality that has hit Britain – The controversy that has surfaced into the mainstream: The veil or not the veil.
Jack Straw (Leader of the House of Commons) this week put this on the political agenda by announcing that he preferred to talk with his Islamic women constituents without them wearing a veil. He asked, he claims, for the veil to be removed before any discussion takes place. 'Facial body language is so important in any discussion' he states.
Maybe that is so, but I remember many meetings with women (particularly sales representatives) when the length of the skirt or the cut of the blouse and even the scent of the woman, definitely got in the way of my judgements. And I loved every minute of it!
So can this be as simple as dress code. Surely not. Straw seems to have decided, whether by himself or after consultation with others, to face a growing barrier between Christianity (or its equivalent secular veil), and Islam through the metaphor of the veil. Straw is a very intelligent person and has obviously thought this one out long and hard before the statement was made.
There is in any culture a longing for tradition to be maintained. I am reminded of Christianity’s own 'protecting veil' which I discovered by chance after hearing John Tavener's 1989 promenade season recording of the music by the same name. A closer examination of the discography led me to understand the importance of the veil to the Christian world of Constantinople. Further research provided the following notes by Tavener:
'…The Feast of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God was instituted by the Orthodox Church to commemorate Her appearance in the church at Vlacherni (Constantinople), in the early tenth century, possibly a.d. 902. At a time of grave danger for the Greeks from Saracen invasion, Andrew, the holy fool, and his disciple Epiphanios, saw the Mother of God during an all-night vigil. She was high above them in the air, surrounded by a host of saints, praying earnestly and spreading out her veil as a protective shelter over the Christians. Heartened by this vision, the Greeks withstood the Saracen assault and drove away the Saracen army…'
That interpretation by Tavener, of one of history's celebrated wholly Christian events is a chilling reminder of where we stand in today's secularised western world. The veil then, reminds me that the world division along theological grounds is as strong as it was in Andrew's days and I have to ask who plays the 'fool' now?
What the outcome of this seemingly ordinary event in Straw's constituency will be I do not know, but I do fear the divide widens by the day and the consequences may be dire for both the Islamic and Western worlds. It has if nothing else, put the problem closer to the table top.