NOISY NEIGHBOURS

Boris Johnson - clown or contender?

The flat where it all took place is quite close to where I live - about a mile away, I would guess. It belongs to Carris Symonds, who works for the Conservative party and which she shares (or shared, we are not quite sure) with Boris Johnson who was set to be the party's next leader and consequently Prime Minister until they had a noisy row and their neighbours called the police and, more significantly, The Guardian, which gave the story about the Tories publicity.

Of course, if Johnson had been a left-wing figure the Brexit-supporting newspapers would have milked it mercilessly to run him down. As it was, they sided more with him and The Daily Mail indulged in its usual habit of messenger-shooting by criticising the neighbours who recorded the row and broke the story as being left-wing troublemakers.

Which they are. But this does not make them liars or fantasists, which Boris increasingly seem like. Both are Remain supporters and could have let the whole issue die after the police assured them that no-one had been hurt in the incident. Instead they sent the recording of the row to the Guardian which publicised it and may have done real damage to Johnson's attempt to become Prime Minister. Obviously there was a bit of political opportunism in what they did - but that does not alter the fact of Johnson's behaviour and Symonds' reaction to it. She may even have ended the relationship but Johnson refuses to talk about the incident.

Does Johnson’s row with his partner/girlfriend matter? In the grand scheme of things, not much, but in leadership contest, character is obviously important. Johnson can hardly complain about this. If anyone has made a career out of personality rather than policy it is him. He plays the clown and has a good turn of phrase but it is well known that he only committed to the Leave cause at the last minute and had actually drafted an article in support of Remain before he decided to ditch it as he felt the wind was blowing in the other direction. He is far more calculating than he likes to appear and, if Leave would help him get to Number 10, then he would back it. And it did – so he did. It seemed to be working - until the row broke.

I had thought Jeremy Hunt might be next leader of the Conservatives after Theresa May without realising how the party felt they needed someone who could defeat Nigel Farage. There is no chance that Hunt would have a very public row with his wife (although he did manage to get her nationality wrong not long ago). He would be a safer pair of hands than Johnson and he must be rubbing his hands at how clumsy his opponent has been. Not only has he had this toxic row with his partner but he refused to answer questions it, acting as if it is beneath him to talk about such matters. I am going to be Prime Minister and am answerable to nobody he seems to say.

No-one forced Johnson and Symonds to have this fight and to disturb their neighbours. Why could Johnson not just apologise for making an almighty racket, laugh it off and say that the two of them had a row and apologised for any upset they caused? Yet there is something about Johnson which finds it impossible to admit to making a mistake and this makes me mistrust him. Most of us – myself included – have done things which we regret and are embarrassed by later on. Why not just come out and admit it? The story would die soon enough and a little humility might even help Johnson in the long run. He could make a joke about it and even turn the event to his advantage.

Instead he seems to think he is beyond apologising and, for this reason, I do not trust him to be our next Prime Minister. Most of those who have worked with Johnson do not trust him either. He repeatedly cheated on his wife and had numerous children outside his marriage. No-one is quite sure how many and it is astonishing that the party of the family seems so keen to embrace him as its leader and Prime Minister. Are they really saying that this is a private matter and should be ignored? They can only be desperate for someone who can defeat Nigel Farage at the polls.

Johnson's rival for the leadership Michael Gove has admitted to a misdemeanour and admitted taking cocaine. At the same time he was writing articles condemning middle-class drug-takers. It is not taking drugs which is wrong and writing articles saying you should be punished for taking them is common enough. It is the combination of the two which condemns Gove. Don't do what I do, do what I say seems to be the moral.

I hate what Brexit has done to Britain. When we went to Spain recently, we were waved through customs and passport control and made to feel welcome. Why are we breaking away from these countries? Why is it ok to hate foreigners now when they have done so little to damage our country? And why cannot we concentrate on things which are really important - like eliminating poverty and tackling climate change?

A no-deal Brexit now seems the most likely option simply by default and it will probably be a disaster. Especially with Boris Johnson, who has always had a shaky relationship with the truth, in charge.

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

MAKING MONEY, PRESERVING FREEDOM

George Monbiot (from Wikipedia)

I was intrigued by a column in the Guardian newspaper recently by the environmental correspondent and in-house favourite George Monbiot challenging us to declare that capitalism is dead. It has long been accepted thinking on the left to say that capitalism is wicked, out of date and incapable of saving us from disaster. And yet, curiously, it seems to go on and on. The system is both resilient and adaptable and has long outlived socialism organised by the state or communism, as it was once known. I think that the death of communism has removed the brake on the acquisition of excessive personal riches which is such a blight on the system and on the lives of those who have accrued great wealth and seem none the happier for it. Having loads of dosh does not seem a good way to live.

Actually, I do not care that much about capitalism in itself. It is the democracy and freedom which come with it that I value. I agree with Winston Churchill who said that democracy was the worst system of government ever invented - except for all the others. The world is full of people who offer cheap and easy solutions to our problems. Just put me in charge for a while and everything will be ok, they say. I don't believe a word of it. These people often used to be on the left but are now mainly found on the right - Trump, Farage, Erdogan et al. 

At least with a consitutional democracy you can vote out those who are in charge every four or five years. Nobody lasts forever in a democracy and sometimes they last a pretty short time, as Theresa May has found out recently. I actually feel sorry for her and think she got dealt a bad hand in trying to sort out Brexit, one which she did not play very well in the end. Once I feel sorry for a leader their time is usually up. Pity does not play well in politics.

Monbiot's argument is that capitalism is failing us because it uses up resources more quickly than they can be created and this will inevitably lead to disaster. I think this underestimates the adaptability of the wealth creation process. Everybody in the country is aware of the potential dangers of climate change and global warming and so single use plastic, hybrid and electric cars and renewable energy are all making headway, not because this is ordered from above but because it is demanded from below. We still want to travel, turn on our computers and heat or cool our homes but at least we are going about these activities in a slightly more responsible way. Most people can buy into a system which takes account of the need to change our ways but are not keen to go back to the Stone Age.

Take tax for example. I can remember the days when tax rates were far higher than they are now, notoriously ninety eight per cent at the top end of the scale for 'unearned' income - ie investments. This led to two things, first the creation of so-called tax exiles, who chose (but were not forced) to live abroad on the advice of their accountants to avoid punitively high taxes. Secondly, inflated transfers fees for soccer players, which could be written off against corporation tax, and creation of entities such as Apple corps which was started by the Beatles who, faced with enormously high tax bills, could squander their wealth on schemes like these which could also be written off. Irresponsible short termism and lack of involvement in your country's long-term future were actually encouraged by high taxes.

Now personal taxes have been reduced to the levels that have been maintained for some time - a tax free allowance of roughy what you would earn on minimum wage, then twenty per cent until you get to around double the national average, forty per cent above that and forty five per cent for the top earners. Some people claim to like paying tax, others hate it and most of us cough up and have a good moan while acknowledging that they are needed to pay for schools, health, roads and agencies which protect us like the police and army. 

I think capitalism works better in a free society where innovation is encouraged. The example of China shows, however, that it can also flourish in repressive societies. Nominally communist, China long ago embraced free enterprise while retaining a high level of state control and offering little in the way of political freedom. In fact, China has a highly repressive and controlling society and has also has experienced terrible environmental problems and high emissions of greenhouse gasses, problems which more flexible western societies have been quicker to address, not because business is concerned with the long-term future of the planet but because the consumer is and demands better ways of protecting it. 

In short, capitalism does not need freedom but freedom needs capitalism. if we are going to save the planet we will have to do so from the bottom up not the top down and this requires the preservation of capitalism and the freedoms that go with it.

How can we individually make a difference as individuals? To find out go to:

https://savingourplanet.net/12-solutions-can-limit-global-warming/

To read George Monbiot's article go to: 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/capitalism-economic-system-survival-earth . 

Edwin Lerner    My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

A VEGGIE LENT

... and Hitler

The world's two most famous vegetarians - Gandhi

I had my first taste of meat for six and a half weeks on the evening of Easter Saturday when Lent came to an end.  It is good to give up because starting again makes you look at what you eat/use/do afresh.  My daughter is a vegetarian, was once a vegan and has been trying to convert me without much success.  Although I do have cut back on eating meat considerably, I have not it given up. Why not?

There are three ways to approach an issue like this – intellectually, emotionally and sensually or, if you prefer, via the head, the heart and the stomach. Let’s take them one by one.

Stomach – there is no doubt that I like eating meat. Tearing flesh from bone is a very neolithic urge and an enjoyable action. After finishing a meal with meat, I feel satisfied in a way that I never quite am with its vegetarian equivalent. And there is nothing quite like the smell of roasting meat to make the taste buds salivate. This is not a moral point but, as a biological being, I am definitely up for eating my fellow residents on planet Earth. This is how I was designed – or evolved – and is not in itself a cause for regret or shame.

Heart – I am not someone who takes delight in killing fellow creatures for food. I do not hunt and am, like most city dwellers, squeamish about killing animals. If I had to kill what I ate I might need to turn vegetarian. Or maybe not.

Brain – My basic problem with vegetarianism is that if you deny the death, you deny the life. While I acknowledge that the meat industry does some pretty terrible things to animals, most of these are during their lifetimes and can be controlled, supervised, improved. If we simply abolish eating meat altogether then the animals that provide this meat will soon disappear in a one way journey to the slaughterhouse.

So, it is two out of three. I enjoy meat and am not convinced by the case for refraining from it, even if I leave the killing to some less sensitive souls.  There is nothing unusual in this: I pay someone else to fix my car - and my body - when they go wrong. On the same way they pay if they want a tourist guide. We live in a world of specialists rather than survivors and animal slaughter is definitely a specialism. Even those who shoot birds and game employ a small army of helpers who depend on the sport of the better off.

Human beings can, of course, survive on a non-meat diet and many societies have done so. It is worth pausing, however, to look at those which have and I have three examples which I believe prove my point. These three examples are one that has survived and prospered, one that has ended and one that, thank God, never came into being. They are India, pre-famine Ireland and Hitler’s vision of a future Germany.

India is a country where the majority of the population have never eaten meat. It is not illegal to do so but it is restricted to the wealthier sections of society. In fact, meat-eating is often seen as a sign that you have risen from the ranks of the peasantry who cannot afford meat. Few Indians argue in favour of vegetarianism from a moral standpoint. They have just excised it from their way of living over the centuries. It is well known that you can feed more people per unit of land with a vegetarian diet than by raising animals, so this is how the Indians have coped with such a large population in a restricted space. Likewise, vegetarianism is often adopted in the West by people who live in densely crowded countries. Those who occupy places with wide open spaces almost always eat meat – either through hunting or by raising livestock.

Ireland today it has a population of five to six million which is actually lower than it was 200 years ago when it had to feed around eight million people. The reason for the drop in numbers was the potato famine which killed a million and forced over a million more people to emigrate. The Irish pre-famine diet consisted largely of potatoes and when the crop failed, hunger inevitably followed. Again, there was nothing particularly moral about this adoption of a meatless life. It was simply a result a large population in a restricted area. Once the population dropped the Irish starting eating meat again and still (mostly) do so.

Nazi Germany was formed, of course, from the vision of one man, Adolf Hitler. The extent of and the reasons for Hitler’s adoption of a meatless diet are debatable but it seems to me that mass vegetarianism was an essential consequence of ‘lebensraum’, literally ‘living space’ whereby the Aryan races would expand by seizing land from their weaker neighbours. The accompanying race purification would mean getting rid of undesirables – Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and those mentally or physically disabled – and animals would follow them into extinction as living space was increased both inwardly by more efficient land use coupled with eugenics and outwardly by conquest of those unfortunate enough to live next to the Nazis. The world’s two most famous vegetarians were Hitler and Gandhi. They were superficially opposites yet they both wanted to free their people and feed them in a restricted space.  Coincidence? I doubt it.

Hang on a moment here.  Are we saying that all vegetarians are fascists? Of course not. They are usually gentle and humane, inclined to be left-wing. Yet, the vegetarian movement is surely one which increases human domination of the planet rather than one which allows animals and human beings to live in Disneyesque harmony. It is an evolutionary defence mechanism designed to help us survive as our population increases. And for that reason – rather than sentiment or taste preference – I cannot take it up. 

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is: diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

KEEPING CONFIDENCES

Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper - would you keep his secret?

A few years ago I went to a talk in which a social worker was describing a research project she had conducted in New Zealand which led to the book she was promoting. I cannot remember much about the book but I do recall her saying that it was important to guarantee total confidentiality to people you were talking to if you wanted them to speak freely and honestly. If they thought there was any possibility that you would betray their confidences by betraying them to the police they would immediately clam up.

When it came time for questions I raised my hand intending to ask her what she would have done if she had conducted her research in Yorkshire instead of New Zealand, had come across Peter Sutcliffe and realised he was the notorious Yorkshire Ripper before the police did. (Their investigation was notoriously incompetent.) There was not enough time for my admittedly awkward question in the end so I never got an answer, but it did set me thinking about the limits of confidentiality. Not only social workers with a book to write but priests also have to face this quandary. They are bound by the vows of their calling not to reveal what they hear in the privacy of the confessional box but have faced pressure to give up paedophiles who confess their sins to them but not to the police. 

There are three purely practical reasons why this idea is a non-starter. Firstly: if word got out that confessing to a priest led you to being grilled by a police officer, people would stop confessing without necessarily ending their criminal activity. Second: confessional evidence would probably not be admissible in court on the basis that, if a priest disobeys his vows, how can you trust what he says under oath? Third: never underestimate the power of martyrdom: if priests have a choice between breaking the seal of the confession (ie their vow of confidentiality) and going to prison themselves, the vast majority will embrace the earthly punishment and would be supported by a Catholic hierarchy rocked by its own child abuse problems and desperate for the opportunity to prove that the representatives of God on earth would sacrifice themselves for the faith. We would probably end up sending priests rather than paedophiles to prison, which rather defeats the point. 

But there is another reason why priests should not be obliged to give up those who confess their sins. Do we really want to live in a society in which everyone is obliged to report those who break the law to the authorities? For, if child molesters have to be betrayed, surely drug-takers and tax-dodgers must be too. The law does not distinguish between different types of crime when it comes to reporting illegal acts so, before long, we would be living in the kind of society which was utterly rejected by the inhabitants of East Germany, Russia and all the other countries which later threw off the yoke of the secret police. We might think that some crimes are not worth reporting but those who enforce the law do not grant us this luxury.

Landlords who rent out properties would have to act as unpaid and unofficial immigration officials by checking that their prospective tenants had the right to live here; doctors would have to inform the hospital authorities if they thought that their patients might not be entitled to free treatment on the NHS; and we would all have to give up friends who had slipped into a drug use, which might be spiralling out of control.

What would you do if a friend telephoned you and admitted that he was addicted to cocaine or heroin, that he owed money to his dealer, his wife had left him and he was about to lose his job? His life was going down the tube and he appeals to you for help. Do you say you will help him get on a programme and see what you can do to help him keep his family and job and free himself of his addiction – or do you hang up and call the cops to say that Joe Bloggs has just admitted to you that he has taken illegal substances?

Decent people would, of course, help their friend recover their life, even though it would technically mean that they were failing to report a crime (taking illegal drugs) to the authorities and would thus entail aiding a criminal. This is what priests are doing when they do not give up the child-molester by reporting him. That is not to say they ignore the wrong he (usually) does. “Go away and sin no more,” are the last words a priest says to someone who has confessed. They are distinguishing between a sin – that which is against God’s law – and a crime – which is against the law of the land. The two often but not always overlap.

The difference between child molestation and drug-taking, of course, is that there are identifiable victims who need protection in the first case but not the second, even though the fallout from drug use can be devastating for the families of addicts. It is not easy for a priest to allow a paedophile to continue his criminal – and sinful – activities without anything more than an exhortation to stop sinning.  But it is necessary. One of the reasons Catholic priests are not allowed to marry is that they have to hear these confessions but cannot give up the secrets they contain – to their wives or anyone else. Just as that social worker had to keep the secrets of those who talked to her in order to write her book, so the priest has to stay silent when he (definitely in the case of Catholics, possibly if they are Protestant) is hearing what terrible things have been done by those who come to them trusting that they can confess and that what they reveal will be heard in confidence. 

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

THE ABOLITION OF AUTISM

Autistic - and Down Syndrome? - children

A closer view

I went to a ‘relaxed’ performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chichester recently. It was given by Flute Theatre, which was formed by Kelly Hunter to work with autistic people who are encouraged to come forward and join in the action with the actors. I even spoke briefly to her before the show: she is obviously very committed to the remit of the company, to involve people on the autism spectrum in performance. I am also reading Brave New World, the title also coming from Shakespeare (Ariel in The Tempest) and it set me thinking about what future there would be for people like this in a future where we control reproduction.

Let us get some terms right first of all. There are three related - and often confused - conditions: 

Asperger’s Syndrome – this is an inability to communicate effectively with other human beings. At its mildest, it is being unable to make small talk and a tendency to drift away and make poor eye contact with others. It is a condition an ex-partner of mine said I have and there may be a little truth in this although, as I have managed to lead a full and independent life, it is not a crippling condition at least at one end of the spectrum. In fact, some women would say of virtually all men that they do not pay enough attention to them.

Autism is a more severe version of the above and autistic people are very reliant on carers, usually their parents. They may have a tremendous memory for numbers (such as the savant Raymond played by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man); they may bring great joy to parents and siblings, but they struggle to make friends and to live independently. Males are four times more likely than females to have the condition.

Down Syndrome people (previously referred to as Mongols) are instantly recognisable with their flattened faces and thick necks. While autism is an intellectual condition, Down Syndrome is a medical condition which can be identified through prenatal testing and this often results in the abortion of the affected foetus. 

Because autism and Asperger’s are on a spectrum, it is hard to determine accurate numbers, but there are probably around twenty five million people with the condition in the world today and nearly twice as many with Down Syndrome. Autism is a predominantly masculine condition, four to five times more common in males than females, while Down Syndrome is non-sexist, equally prevalent in both genders. Flute Theatre does not seem to distinguish between the conditions and I am sure there were people with all of them amongst those who were invited to take part in the performance – often magically – with the professional actors

There are no pre-natal tests - yet - for autism but the technology has advanced to the stage that you can now test for Down Syndrome children in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. Unlike, autism, the causes of which are not fully known at present, Down Syndrome is caused by a chromosome (number 21) which can be identified relatively early. Although the test is not completely accurate, it can give parents a pretty good idea if their child will have the condition and, if it indicates that it will, they almost always terminate.

Before we rush to judgement on the Down baby abolishers, we should put ourselves in their position. Would you happily take on the extra commitment and frustration that having a Down child involves? Like most people I would accept and embrace any child I had but might, in the cold light of day, take the option and choose the easy path. This is one of those situations where technology influences decision making. It is hard to opt for ignorance, even harder to choose what was once known as God’s will, later just bad luck.

Dominic Lawson has written movingly about having a Down Syndrome daughter, saying that his desire to protect her meant that he bonded with her much more quickly than with her more ‘normal’ sister. He also said that his wife had expressed the view that those who had indicated that it was a shame that they had not known of her condition in advance – and, by implication, having a temination - could no longer be regarded as their friends. A bit harsh maybe, but the Lawsons would see this as a way of protecting their beloved daughter from those who think she should have been quietly flushed away before being born. 

This is an impossible conundrum and I am thankful that I have never had to consider it. I both sympathise with those who opt for termination and admire those who do not, either by deliberately remaining ignorant or by ignoring the implications of a positive test for Down Syndrome. I do not think it is possible to eliminate or forbid technology which makes us more able to analyse and understand the world around us but I also think that we sometimes know too much for our own good. It is probably just a matter of time before we can predict autism accurately in unborn children and, with people being allowed to abort foetuses that have nothing worse than a hare lip, it is likely that eventually both Down Syndrome and autism will disappear as we strive for ever more perfect pregnancies. 

Which will be a huge shame – and will leave the Flute Theatre crowd out of a job. Enjoy their work while you can, whether you are on the spectrum or have children with the condition or not. 

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com 

An interesting post by the mother of autistic sons: http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/news/prenatal-tests-and-autism-mothers-story-4278942

For more on Flute Theatre go to: http://www.flutetheatre.co.uk 

SHOULD WE GIVE TIPS?

A pile of pound coins (photo from pixels.com)

Now I have to declare an interest here.  Working as a tourist guide, I have made a fair proportion of my income from tips. The exact amount varies from a nice bonus at the end of the day to the difference between survival and prosperity. There is, of course, a box in my annual tax return form in which I can (and do) add a figure for ‘extra income’. It is not actually labelled ‘Tips’ but the sub-heading indicates that this is where the honest tax-payer enters his or her tips.  I always fill it in with a - more or less - accurate figure.  

Plenty of people do not.  Tips and other cash earnings are notoriously a part of the black economy and go untaxed. I do not use the phrase ‘tax free’, as some do when referring to cash earnings, because they are not free of tax in theory even if they often are in practice.  This is the main argument against tipping, that it allows some people an unfair advantage over others who have tax deducted at source and have no opportunity to add cash to their pay.

What are the advantages of tipping?  Well, I can honestly say that I am a better tourist guide because of it.  You soon learn which are the comments and jokes which go down well, how long people want to listen and how often they want to be left to sleep (more than you at first imagine).  The potential of earning a tip also makes you remember that you are dealing with real human beings.  They do not care if you are hung-over and fed up and that you do not want to go to a cold, windy Stonehenge for the umpteenth time.  It is their first and probably only time and they expect someone who is being paid to make it worthwhile.

And they are prepared to pay extra for someone who makes the extra effort to bring a group of ancient stones clustered together on Salisbury Plain to life. That is the thing about giving tips. It is entirely voluntary.  When we have a bad day in the tip basket, I will say to a driver who complains that you can take a horse to water but cannot make him drink.  You can conduct the same tour with similar sized groups and the same degree of enthusiasm on consecutive days and on one you will feel like you are the best in the world because the tips were good and on the next you will feel like a failure because they were bad.

I like this uncertainty.  It adds to the interest of the job, to not know exactly how much you are going to earn. It keeps you both on your toes and down to earth.  All the knowledge, qualifications and experience in the world will not compensate for a grumpy attitude or appearance and tipping reminds those who work with paying customers of this important fact.  To put it bluntly, tipping prevents you from disappearing too far up your own backside.

There is no rationality about tipping so it does not appeal to those who like an ordered and predictable world.  People tip taxi drivers but not bus drivers.  They (hopefully) tip tourist guides but not travel agents.  Waiters earn tips but not chefs.  The story goes that the word comes from the initials of the phrase ‘to insure promptness’ from those who were bringing you dinner or drinks, although this is probably a myth, acronyms being very much a twentieth century invention, occasionally turned into ‘backronyms’ of the past.

Whatever its origins, tipping has survived albeit in a patchy way.  Some cultures do not encourage or even allow it and younger people seem less comfortable with it than older ones, although that might well change as they accumulate more disposable income.  The biggest threat to tipping could well be the cashless society. You can add the ‘service charge’ to your restaurant bill (and many places nowadays do it for you) but this is sometimes absorbed by the business and only reaches the waiting staff as part of their basic wages rather than the bonus it is meant to be.  But how can you tip a barman for making you a particularly nice drink if you pay him with a credit card.  As for buskers (and beggars) they face a bleak future in a world in which plastic is king.  I have no desire to live in such a sterile place but Sweden, which is usually a good predictor of the future, is going that way and we could well follow, while the USA remains wedded to cash.

Some people find the whole process of tipping demeaning because it encourages a servile attitude.  I emphatically deny that it does so in my case.  People like a fawning guide as little as a grumpy one and sometimes you have to crack the whip in order to keep the group in shape even if it means missing a tip. 

The ultimate justification for tipping is that it is a way of saying ‘thank you’ in financial terms.  In restaurants, for example, the person eating is probably earning between two and two hundred (maybe two thousand) times what the person serving makes.  The server is performing a service and, if he or she does it well, should be rewarded.  Tipping is sending money directly from the richer man (probably) to the poorer person and, as such, it is wealth redistribution in practice.  It does make for a perfect world but it helps to nudge us towards a fairer one and so, in practical terms it should be encouraged. It is wealth actually ‘trickling down’.

And so, do I give tips to those who provide services for me.  If you get, you have to give.

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

ALL TIED UP

Redford in The Old Man and the Gun - with tie loosened

This year we have been worrying about Brexit, climate change and Donald Trump  So what am I writing about at the end of 2018?  The importance of a necktie, of course.

I am one of those men who never quite feel they have finished getting dressed until they have put their tie on.  In practice, however, I rarely wear one, however, unless I have a specific reason to do so such as going to work (increasingly unnecessary) or attending some formal event (increasingly rare).  I have quite a good collection of ties in my wardrobe, two dozen I chose myself plus a few ones leftover work ones and others given as presents which I never actually wear, but which I could not throw away because they remind me of the person who gave them “hideous ties, so kindly meant” as John Betjeman put it in his lovely poem about Christmas, which you can see and hear him reading  on YouTube (link) – wearing a tie.

While they are still considered de rigeur for male politicians, newsreaders and James Bond, the health risks of ties are increasingly making them redundant and even dangerous.  They are said to increase the risks of strokes and to carry germs so are effectively banned in hospitals: you never see a doctor wearing one there nowadays and rarely in a surgery, whereas previous generations regarded it as an essential sign of professionalism and, I suppose, seriousness.  You were just not considered a fully paid up professional unless you wore that stretch of silk or wool, often with the badge of your professional organisation. 

Gradually the old school tie gave way to the fashionable accessory; tie shops began to appear and a sign of seriousness became an excuse for frivolity.  This undermined the point of a tie, which might have been completely plain in its heyday.  A stripe or two would be the nearest it came to raffishness, even these carrying a hint of the old school or professional association which you (or your parents) had to earn the right to wear.  As often as not a tie would signify membership of a club or organisation and would set the wearer apart as a man of distinction, a real big spender as Shirley Bassey would say with a hint that she wanted a piece of the action – in both senses.  A tie equalled money equalled success equalled sex.  The act of undoing it could slow down the process of love-making but maybe that was no bad thing.

Mark Zuckerberg likes to pretend that he is a rebel and makes a virtue of tielessness so he always wears a tee shirt, unless he is taking to politicians and is obviously in trouble. Sir Alex Ferguson, on the other hand, was always seen with a club tie when he was representing Manchester United and managing the team to glory. He was a big spender, although it was not his own money he was parting with when singing players.  Yet, when he was interviewed for a profile in The Times newspaper, he was photographed at home with an open-necked shirt.  Somehow you could not imagine Sir Matt Busby doing the same.  Jose Mourinho used to wear the Chelsea tie but did not at United and stood on the touchline with an open-necked shirt.  Likewise, Prince Charles, who comes from an older more formal generation, is rarely seen tieless in public while his sons usually are, William wearing an open-necked shirt when he takes his children to school.

That seems to be the fashion today, a smart suit and shirt but no tie.  Let us stick to the basics and do away with all unnecessary items if we want to be taken seriously seems to be the message.  If you have to wear a tie, the way you do so sends out a signal.  Leaving it loose around your neck shows that you are in but not of the establishment. In films actors adopt this style to show they are portraying someone working inside the system who is nevertheless naturally rebellious.  Although they have to hold down a job and wear the uniform, they have not fully given in to the tyranny of conformity.  Billy Crudup tried this in the film Jackie when he portrayed the journalist but it seemed wrong to me.  The real Jackie Kennedy was impeccably stylish and would never have tolerated a man wearing his tie so sloppily.  Similarly Robert Redford does this in his film The Old Man and the Gun in which he portrays a compulsive but kindly bank-robber who uses an unthreatening method to grab the loot, with the tie done up properly when he is robbing but left loose when he is off duty.  This does not quite work for me, the character he is portraying being an exploiter of the system rather than a rebel within it - but we get the point.  The suit and tie are a uniform not an expression of who he really is.

One of my sisters-in-law says that, if you are going to wear a tie, you should at least do it up properly.  I agree with her.  However, I do have to leave the top button undone when wearing one.  I have a rather thick neck and, in order to wear a ready-made shirt of the correct size for the rest of my torso, I find the collar uncomfortably tight if it is done up.  To compensate for this, I tie a Windsor knot which is wider and hides the undone button. Ian Fleming wrote that his hero James Bond thought that the Windsor knot was the mark of a ‘cad’ (the last time I can remember that word being used without irony) but I disagree.  I think it is the one useful and worthwhile thing that frivolous and self-important man did for the world, giving us the thick-necked men a way of wearing what is really a totally unnecessary item of male clothing.

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com