history

A Gem by the Etihad

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A pleasant and overlooked piece of Manchester’s diverse history. Fitted rooms, detailed and decorated with real artefacts and displays, echo the ambience of past and give our present an opportunity of reflection.

There are connections to Shakespeare, witchcraft, gardening, and nature amongst extensive grounds surrounded by the historic moat.

Throughout the visit, the historic walls, belfry, and varied facades make for good photography. The welcoming staff of volunteers are an asset to a hidden gem only a stones throw from the Etihad Stadium.

Manchester’s Metrolink is across the road at Clayton Hall stop, with the Ashton canal, and Clayton Hall in close proximity to allow more exploration. The hall is a must for historians, families, and those with a curious eye.

Visit https://claytonhall.org/ for more information.

Shipping Out.

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19th January 1863



Dear Manchester,

put your money where your mouth is, this slavery malarkey has to end. End of.

Peace and love,

Abe Lincoln



(P.S. United don’t exist as a club yet, but they’ll probably worship the devil).





The above letter is a paraphrased example. Like much of the world Manchester was wearing the latest clothing of the time around that time. Gucci? Not born. Cotton? Everywhere. The bustling smog of Manchester coated moths, as much as provided clothing to men and women alike. Transgenders were around but less represented. It was, of course, different times. Cash was made. Lots of it. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had met in Manchester a few years earlier and released their Waterstones best seller The Condition of the Working Class in England. Jack Reacher novels were nowhere to be seen.



Turn-und Sportverein München von 1860 hadn’t even started kicking a football until 1899. Die Blauen had other sports, and all could have worn cotton garments made in Lancashire. Those kits wouldn’t have featured cotton picked by slaves in the U.S. of A. No. No way. Lancastrian workers had principles. Rather than make a quick Queen Victoria penny, cotton mill workers took a stand. Southern bastards from U.S.of A. were attacking their northern kin and union. The Confederacy could no longer count on cash from much of the north west of England. Unlike England’s Liverpool, where Confederate flags flew proudly. As some households went hungry, more than half of the mills and looms lay silent.

“I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working-men of Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis” – letter: To the Working-men of Manchester, Abraham Lincoln.

Manchester’s Manchester Guardian opposed the blockades. It wanted to put food back on the people’s table. Yet, workers gathered in the Free Trade Hall stuck two fingers up at a proposal to drop the blockade. They backed Abraham Lincoln and his northern union. Starvation and destitution followed. A tad like how the prices of tomatoes have been on the rise after the U.K. backed the Ukraine, whilst simultaneously telling Europe to go away. As the army read the riot act, and Lincoln (the man, not the city) earned himself a future statue in Manchester, praising “”sublime Christian heroism”. Ships full of provisions were also sent, which was a relief for many in Manchester. Within two years slavery was added to the U.S. Constitution and Manchester’s mills were back pumping crap into the air, allowing families to feed themselves once again.


Abraham Lincoln’s fate wasn’t so pleasant and before he had chance to visit Manchester, he was gunned down. This process has been repeated a few times since and seems integral to U.S. culture.


So, when The Guardian, The Daily Mail, etc. manipulate headlines to flag Manchester City, and even MUFC’s crest as being a symbol of slavery, they need to dig into their research skills and work on their journalistic talents before blindly printing misinformation. Even the Manchester Evening News and MUFC’s historian had the decency to highlight the city’s backing of the abolitionist movement. The Manchester Guardian, founder, John Edward Taylor had partnerships with slavers and their companies. History is littered with profits being made over humanity. Let’s learn from it. We’re better for it. We can’t hide our history!

Man U added their ship to a badge in 1902. City used Manchester’s heraldic design from 1894 to 1960. The ship on both is that of a merchant ship to symbolise the city’s link to the Manchester Ship Canal. The Guardian’s writer connects the ship to black history in an insulting an incorrect way. History matters. Get it right. Stop trying to revise history and change a country’s shame based on a misplaced reckoning.

The Guardian writer Simon Hattenstone even suggested the bee of Manchester’s industry replaces the ship. If he had been a tad more industrial in his research and knowledge, he may have published a more compelling argument. Instead, he created a woke debate and accidentally made The Sun look like a paper of good response. And to agree with Man Utd historian J.P. Neill, I close with this quote: “’Not only did the club badges long post-date the abolition of slavery, the clubs themselves were only founded decades after slavery was ended.”

15th April MMXXIII

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Up by 5.30am. In a car by 6.30am. A breakfast of water, a slice of bread, and some meatballs. No coffee. We popped out from Huizhou to Meizhou for a coffee. The 105th day of the year. 260 remaining days.

April the 15th is an old date in history. Wars, death and grimness. April (四月) is usually associated with the sound si which sounds a lot like death. Aside from the Pocotaligo Massacre (1715), Swedes defeating Romans at Rain (1632), the English getting battered in Northern France (1450) and the ill-fated Battle of Kilrush (1642), there has to be something good about April the 15th. Step forward Samuel Johnson.

Dr Samuel Johnson published A Dictionary of the English Language. Game changer. Useful for words such as olympiad, because April 15th, 1896, marks the closing ceremony of the first modern Olympics. Two years prior, on April 16th, 1894, Manchester City F.C. was incorporated. Close enough for a tedious inclusion. Other notable events on April 15th include the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic – a legendary tragedy and disaster, and in 1941, a thousand or so souls were killed in the Belfast Blitz. Doom and gloom.

In 1989, Hillsborough, the U.K.’s most shameful episode of football terracing disaster would eventually claim 97 lives, and years of campaigning for justice began. Little positive can conclude this simple paragraph and statement. Never forget.

It isn’t all grim for this date. Insulin had become available for the public in 1923. Malta received a Goerge Cross in 1942 and the notorious Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated three years later. In ’55, McDonald’s was founded, keeping obesity an option globally, and perhaps led to some chip fat causing the Notre-Dam de Paris cathedral fire of 2019. Okay, it’s really a date with some unpleasant and bleak history. Just ask Leonardo Da Vinci, Nicolas Chopin, and 1000+ games, Canadian ice hockey star, Keith Acton, their birthday. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated fatally on this date, too. Poor chap. Still, his statue in Manchester, England, is pretty cool.

Arthur Lowe, former Chapel Street Primary School pupil, may have passed away on this day in 1982, but his memory and comedic talent live on. As does the memory of comedian Tommy Cooper. Just like that. The Universal Day of Culture under the Banner of Peace adds a more cultured look at the date in question. Or that of World Art Day, powered by UNESCO. It takes all sorts to give a date a meaning.

We arrived back from Meizhou. We didn’t even get a coffee. Two bottles of soft drinks were all. We sat down for lunch. All done and settled inside a few hours. A new meaning to the date. Our own history. Yet, I feel I have forgotten the date’s other connection. I feel it is attached to a family member, yet I can’t place it.

The moon is rising.

Back to Daisy Nook.

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Wandering the sloppy banks of Crime Lake, a buzzard flew overhead, and my dog Panda flashed his muddy black and white coat as he bounded ahead. I hadn’t visited Daisy Nook Country Park in ages. On a damp December afternoon, I left Newton Heath with Panda after a brief lunch.

The walk there involved passing through Clayton Vale, crossing Clayton Bridge, heading under the railway viaduct by Millstream Animal Sanctuary along a grim industrial road called Green Lane. Green, in other parts, but not by Lord’s Brook and the stinky sewage works. Trudging through the soggy pathway at Medlock Valley Fisheries, the rough path saddled alongside the River Medlock and nearby railway. At a footbridge by Hadfield Wood Recyclers, a left turn headed us onto the Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne Canal Hollinwood Branch. This is a pretty area within Greater Manchester. It is worth visiting every season.

The pathway sweeps along ruins and flooded canal troughs until the M60 motorway disects the route, offering a bleak metal bridge. Afterwards, the canal returns, flooded by plants and trees overlooking hither and dither. By Lumb Lane and below tiding stables. A cafe and car park adds accessibility to the various pathways and bridleways.

The unique Daisy Nook Country Park features water Sammy’s Basin, Crime Lake, and Bardsley Canal. Water creatures are varied, from coots, moorhens, swans, and so on to otters and river rodents. Dozens of old canal relics remain, including double locks, bold staircase locks, and odd right angle turns. The Waterhouses Aqueduct passes over the River Medlock. The views above and below are worth the steep walks on either side.

Author Ben Brierley published A Day Out, which was set around Waterhouses and featured an area called Daisy Nook. That moniker stuck with locals. The name Crime Lake comes from Crime Valley, which isn’t a Scandinavian drama. Crime used to mean land intersected by a stream. Now, it’s more associated with crime. Fishing without a permit is a crime.

Daisy Nook is a special part of Failsworth, an area of Oldham Town, and a place my Gran used to live. Crime Lane Aqueduct is as picturesque a place as you can possibly see. This is a unique spot to sit and enjoy the sunset and explore Benjamin Outram’s ironworks lay under the outwardly brick appearance of Crime Lake Aqueduct. This hybrid bridge was a place I visited with Gran and Ernie when I was young. Daisy Nook still has magic and a draw. Many dogwalkers and friendly people said hello, as did a curious kingfisher and a big grey heron.

On the pathway back, instead of taking the right turn alongside the railway after the Hollinwood Canal, I crossed the wooden floored bridge and turned right immediately. A cycle path marked by solar lights guided us back towards Clayton Vale. Sadly, at Taunton Brook, we had to go off-road to avoid the deeply flooded pathway and then scramble around other parts. At the Greenside Lane (Droylsden) to Edge Lane path, it was necessary to double back and head up Clock House Avenue to find a route to Clayton Vale. That negotiated it was plain sailing, and we made it home for a deserved dinner.

Subcutaneous Optimism.

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How do! Nihao! 你好～

Yesterday evening I received my 11th pokey hole. Subcutaneous injection to the stomach number 6 went smoothly. The spectacled nurse grabbed some belly flab, didn’t hesitate and squirted the Heparin into the belly muscle and fat. This new nurse to me did not mess around. From arrival at the bee’s foot to departure was comparable to that of an F1 car having its wheels changed in a race.

Following breakfast, Doctor (Hu?) and Dean (Wang?) did their rounds. I feel much better today. Optimism has been manufactured well. The Dean and the Doctor said my lung is subtotal (not at full capacity) and the right leg trauma was recent (but I’ve not experienced anything bad). I did mention the calf tear two years ago. He said it’s possible but unlikely, unless there are recent micro tears.

The Dean also suggested I was drunk and fell over but truth be told I’ve only drank at the craft beer festival (and that was small glasses but not too numerous. Maybe 7 glasses). The medical professionals must have seen similar to suggest such a thing, but aside from a few drinks at Katherine and Stephen’s in early October, and the Here! Dongguan craft beer festival, I’ve avoided booze. Just not been my thing lately. I prefer a casual chilled out beer from time to time, like watching the Revolution band at Irene’s Bar before the October holidays.

The Dean mentioned two weeks here and to be patient. Those three to five days became seven and now it could be a fortnight. It is what it is. Just like the 12th pokey which was another belly injection. Yet another nurse arrived. I could see air in the top of the fluid. Must be safe though. It wasn’t the calmest or the most comfortable injection. It is what it is.

All of this on Guy Fawkes Night. It’s enough to make you put a mask on and go crazy. The masks featured in V for Vendetta (graphic novel and movie) are based on Guido Fawkes. He fought for the Spanish too. His group’s plan to reinstall a Catholic monarch didn’t work. The protagonists of the Gunpowder Plot were provisional terrorists of their time. Your man Guy was snitched on by anonymous note and captured. Tortured. Convicted. Sentenced. He didn’t get hung (as duch), he did get drawn and quartered (postmortem) because he conveniently fell off the scaffolding. The agony of losing bits like genitals didn’t happen as that slip or jump gave Guy a merciful end. Nevertheless his body parts were scattered to four corners of the kingdom, both as “prey for the fowls of the air” (Fraser, Antonia (2005) [1996], The Gunpowder Plot, Phoenix, ISBN) and to warn off other treasonous swines.

These days British celebration of failure involves toffee apples, parkin cake, bonfires, effigy burning (like in Lewes), and processions. The Observance of 5th November Act 1605 means to celebrate this failed treason was law but by the 25th March 1859 it was repealed. A fairer world. However, Bonfire Night carried on. I recall many damp autumn nights filled with sickening smoke from too many fireworks and bonfires killing the dreams of the unborn Greta Thurnburg. In later years I tired of the bonfire and funfair commercialism and sought to see the artistic firework displays. Still, they’re special days. It’s just a shame they’re mostly so commercial. It is what it is.

Guy Fawkes 13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606. He was what he was.

Ta’ra! Zai jian! 再见～

Stage VIII: Chengdu & Don’t

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你好! Nihao! Hello!

The first train from Chaka Lake station left on time. I’d spent an hour or so prior talking to a young your guide called Ethan. His tour group were busy exploring Chaka Lake. He kindly shown me the mine workers’ village and a nondescript shed that doubled up as a shop. Inside it was crammed with fresh vegetables, beers, spirits, dry foods and all the things life needs to survive. The dark shop had a big bottle of water and a bottle of lemon tea. That’s exactly what I wanted for the four hour train ride ahead.

As I went to pay, Ethan, born in Qinghai and a graduate of philosophy, beat me to it. He insisted. It’s hard to fight warmth and kindness from people at times. We sat on his your coach, complete with snoring driver, and talked about Buddhism, Confucius (孔夫子 Kǒngfūzǐ), Muslims (Hui), and harmonious people. He mentioned how one grandfather had fled persecution during the Cultural Revolution, on the advice of fellow villagers and how another had ridden his horse away from the late-World War II battlefield with Japan.

I changed at Xining for the second train. A sleeper carriage all the way to Chengdu (成都）. I awoke, still with three hours to kill, flipped open Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries and half-read, half-day-dreamed. Alighting the train at Chengdu Railway Station, I emerged into a world of grey. Concrete and aged. My first impressions lacked enthusiastic joy. I headed down to the subway for a tube train to the Chengdu South Railway Station.

I departed the station’s subway via exit C, emerging into a barren building site. I turned right, trying to find a way to the other side of the surface railway. After about a kilometre of walking, I arrived at the Skytel hotel. I checked in without trouble, then headed out for an exploration of the city’s relics.

My initial impression of the city softened. Littered with monasteries, relics and life, the city of Chengdu became a green established city with limited construction (unlike many other cities) but sadly one that has far too many flyovers and cars. I visited a monument to Zhūgě Liàng (诸葛亮), the one time legendary military leader and prime minister of Shu Han (蜀汉) during the Three Kingdoms period. From there I tasted black ice cream from a black cone. No apparent explanation could be given. The Wuhouci (武侯祠) temple was okay but the modern Jinlin Ancient Street (锦里古街) around it was heavily commercial, in a way resembling so many other cities that have tourism at their hearts. The new version of an old style street is very much a photogenic tourist trap.

The biggest draw for tourists lies to the city’s northeast. The city of Chengdu is famous for the Chengdu Panda Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Centre. It’s a kind of zoo limited to red pandas (the original panda) and a handful of aquatic birds… and Giant Pandas. The 58RMB ticket seemed a little harsh at first. Every enclosure had a sign saying that Giant Pandas can’t go outside in warm weather. For me it was no problem. For many other fare paying customers, they were angry on the border of irate.

On entering several internal enclosures, I managed to see a few scruffy Giant Pandas. Their housing having turned their white to grey and black to dirty. Usually Giant Pandas sit with their arse to the windows. Maybe to drowned out the think it on the glass by adults and kids alike. Tired looking security staff didn’t seem interested in keeping the noise down. Some opted for megaphone to make sure you didn’t stay still too long and enjoy the majestic mountain beasts.

Cameras and selfie sticks are all fair and good, but waving them around carelessly striking a Mancunian in the face will only result in an ouch and a tut. Said person then asked me to “小心” (xiǎoxin) which means be careful. It was entirely my fault to be stood still and swiped by a careless metal pole with an iPhone begging to be stamped on. But, instead I tutted. Tut!

I observed Sichuan Opera (四川歌剧院) on the way to meet a good friend Momo and also caught up with an organiser of the Dongguan World Cup for beers, a natter and midnight snacks. His former student friends were all policemen and lawyers. It was an interesting insight into Sichuanese language and culture. They were all so very friendly. Just like the Taoist people at Qingyanggong Temple (青羊宫) and Du Fu’s cottage (think Chinese Shakespeare). Most of the food I ate was not too spicy (微辣; wēilà) but often it was too oily and spicy. The midnight snack hotpot from a Chongqing boss (老板 lǎobǎn) was delicious, even though I’d ate earlier!

Sichuan pepper (花椒; huājiāo) isn’t too hot compared to Thai and Indian foods. It’s just a little more drying with a kind of mouth numbing effect. Although for one meal, passing a Scotts Fish & Chip shop I had to try it. For 110RMB, the large cod and chips with a drink didn’t disappoint at all! A huge Tibetan area by the Wuhouci temple also had my belly full far too much. Meeting Momo in Comfort Cafe (British-style) meant my two days in Chengdu featured a balanced diet of hot and bland. A good Ploughman’s is hard to find. Sorry, Comfort Cafe, I didn’t find it. The piccalilli wasn’t bad though.

Meeting a student who was travelling alone, I ended up exploring the Panda Museum at the Chengdu Panda Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Centre with Jason. He explained how he was studying to be a soldier. I didn’t ask questions. Anyway, we tagged along together and ended up going to the immersive Jurassic World exhibition. The 168RMB allowed a wander through some animatronics and simulations. It wasn’t bad and took me back to the first Jurassic Park movie and book. A highly enjoyable contrast to other cultural parts of the days in Chengdu. Chengdu is truly a modern old city with a futuristic outlook.

Next stop: Dali (after a bloody noisy train journey… or three). It’d be nice if the obese woman and her young child that is full on slobbery would stop screaming down their phones. The phone calls are not really helped by the in-out, in-out nature of tunnels and mountains. Almost everyone around them is going on mad. I’ll just tut. Tut!

再见！Zai Jian! Goodbye!

Stage III: Walls & Fences

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Dear curious folk and readers,

I am writing from near the seat of the West Xia Kingdom (1038-1227). The city of Yinchuan is about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) away from the tombs and mausoleum. The bone dry eastern face of the Helan mountain range towers over the mausoleum site. The site spans around 50 square kilometers (19.3 square miles) and approximately 9 imperial tombs, with a huge 253 lesser tombs. They’re still making discoveries to this day.

The tombs are incredible to witness. The museum at the entrance has six very modern galleries full of relics discovered across the site. The lighting, style and interactive nature of the artefacts is we’ll organised. There are plenty of opportunities to visit the a 3D cinema, gifts shops and grab plenty of water for the outdoor experience that follows. From the museum you can walk to a bus transfer. Here we opted to walk to the mausoleums and experience the desert ambiance.

The mausoleum site is spread out, striking and feature-rich. Steles, towers, sacrifice palaces, earth walls, and natural damage by winter floodwater alongside cracks in the earth covered the whole region. Using three-wheeled scooters after plenty of walking, we managed to see huge distances of the area. Sunblock was applied almost hourly, as grasshoppers flew by with clicking sounds and cute Gerbil-like rodents scampered around. With two litres of water, the day was comfortable, but more is advisable in 38 degrees heat! The sun is not your friend.

The day was a great investment in exploring the state’s deep history and culture. A taxi from Yinchuan cost 60RMB and a return Didi taxi car cost 85RMB with entrance fee being about a 100RMB. Just over two hours on the scooters cost 130RMB (but we certainly went off the beaten track).

The following day, Mr Oliver and I set out for the Great Wall. I’d suggested the Ming Great Wall stretch by a place called Sanguankou (三关口明长城). The three passes are about 2.5km apart. We didn’t go there. Mr Oliver found a section using Baidu maps and an overhead satellite photo near to the G307 highway (Ningxia to Inner Mongolia). So, after a Didi taxi car journey we hopped out in searing heat in the mountainous Alxa desert. Having left Yinchuan’s continental arid climate we were now at the mercy of the sun.

We scrambled up a mound of earth to see a watchtower, wandered down the road and looked at the adjacent wall sections. Here we respected every fence and sign. Then we went under the highway and followed a section of wall through fields and over hills. Horses, hares and hawks were frequent witnesses to our hiking. The enigmatic landscape surrounding the wall had so much to offer the eyes.

Fences came and went, so we walked close and far at times. We started trekking at about 10:30am and ended around 19:00hrs. Some sections had the backdrop of a Jeep safari driving range, whilst others had civilian roads with a handful of tourists driving by and saying hello. At some stage though we had to get back to Yinchuan. The map shown a road to the nearby Wuwa Highway and G110 highway. We avoided the military warning signs on a path seemingly headed into the mountains, passing some civilian contractors and wandered (now without any water left) along a bleak ever-expanding straight line slab of concrete. The road was intensely energy-consuming.

Towards the last 3km, just past the tanks, a car with two men gave us a lift to the highway. That journey was curtailed and after three hours of explaining our day’s walking route, photograph inspection and travel document verification we were driven to the village of Minning. The People’s Liberation Army were extremely hospitable. They seemed to understand that we’d strayed into their tank range unintentionally. They appreciated our desire to see the Ming Dynasty Great Wall.

The gate guardsmen gave us hot noodles, a cake and some fruit. And frequent, much needed water. The chief who came with at least three officers and the Public Security Bureau policemen kept apologising for taking our time. It was all rather surreal. We were able to cancel our onward train journey, and hotel for the next night. We also apologised politely and shown our sorrow at wandering into a restricted military zone.

The Public Security Bureau policemen waited with us whilst we tried to get a taxi or Didi car. As it was midnight, nothing was coming, so we spoke with a nearby hotel receptionist. He ordered a car for us. We got in, whilst being watched by the three policemen. They approached then checked the driver knew where we were going. Finally, they checked his credentials and found he was an illegal taxi driver. So, we stepped from the car, “for your safety” and the Police dealt with him. Annoyed by that inconvenience, we started to hike and try to get back. The Police gave up and headed back. Eventually we flagged down a van.

Nestled between chicken feet in buckets, flies on the roof and 400RMB lighter for it, we made it back to the hotel we’d checked out of that day. We retrieved our left luggage and checked-in. All is well that ends well. Our next journey is the 1842 train to Gansu’s Lanzhou city to meet a connection to Zhangye. What waits for us there?

Until next time, goodbye…

Deadwood.

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How do / 你好

My mentor and colleague Mr Ben recommended a heap of movies and TV series to watch. One such collection was series one to three of Deadwood. Followed by the movie, of the same name. For reasons that I can’t explain, I had, until this year, not watched a single episode of this period drama. I knew it to be a western (that is cowboys and settlements) within new territories or the U.S.A. I also knew Ian McShane to be a lead actor. That was pretty much it.

Set in the real town of Deadwood, South Dakota during the 1870s, the TV adaptation features many legendary real life legends such as Wild Bill Hicock, the brothers Earp, and Calamity Jane. It also features a tonne of bad language, nudity and violence portraying a town’s foundation and fluctuations. The series throws in gold Rush stories, smallpox, Cornish miners and a whole host of historic visitation to the region.

Al Swearengen played by Ian McShane is a lovable villain. At times a hero, at others a demigod. Swearengen’s real life twin brother doesn’t get a nod in. McShane had a few changes from his real life character, accompanied by monologues and dialogues to twist a thousand twirling tongues, went on to win a Golden Globe Award. 36 episodes and a movie filmed a decade after the last TV show, stand in good faith. It’s a sizeable dramatic American Western. Brian Cox, the actor, alongside Timothy Olyphant, Titus Welliver (Borsch) and an ensembles of familiar faces deliver rousing performances throughout.

HBO also shot Rome, a TV series set around Roman time Italy and its empire. National Geographic TV had Vikings. Deadwood slots in nicely as a part historic, part fictional account of civilisation coming together (like they did in The Gem saloon). The finale of the Deadwood TV series never came. Closure would take a movie some time later. Mr Wu’s pigs needed feeding after all.

The movie ditches history entirely. It’s a TV series sequel, complete with flashbacks. Deadwood is dead. Long live the Western. The finale movie was more like a nostalgic Christmas special. It didn’t have as much bite as the original series flow but it had warmth and heart. It displayed great progression in the growth of the town. However it was most enjoyable. I’ll miss the varied closing credit music pieces.

再见 / Goodbye

Statue of Limitation

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How do! / 你好 (nĭ hăo) / Namaste / Welcome!

There’s a financial crisis, then there is austerity, the Grenfell Tower disaster, then a global pandemic, and recessions, and environmental disasters, and climate change, before race battles and financial meltdowns and worries. Oh, there are worries. So many worries. A book written and translated in the 1880s is as ever-relating now as it ever was. We have the translation skills of Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky to thank. Following the 1848 revolutions, Friedrich Engels moved to Manchester for around two decades. Through capitalism he was afforded the luxury of revolutionary ideas.

Friedrich Engels dated Irish immigrant Mary Burns. After Mary’s death, his love passed to her sister Fenian (Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)) Lizzie. They married on her deathbed. In ways he had a Clark Kent and Superman lifestyle. Between riding in hunts in Cheshire, chasing foxes for fixes, he was slipping money out of his accounts to revolutionaries. This Bruce Wayne on one hand, Batman on the other existence was a huge contradiction. Part knight in shining armour and protector to part capitalist imperialist pig. A life beautiful and ugly in the reflection of contradictions.

“social murder”  – Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England

Artist Phil Collins gave Friedrich Engels a home next to HOME in Tony Wilson Place. What was all that about? Our Friedrich Engels was an honorary Manc back in the day. He lived in and around the area for many years. He observed industry at its most brutal and gathered his thoughts in and around the city. The statue of German Friedrich Engels stands outside HOME, an arts and entertainment complex in the heart of the city of Manchester. Phil Colins gave Manchester a piece of its history that is well-documented in paper form, but little seen in the day to day tapestry of the city’s vast structures.

“The way in which the vast mass of the poor are treated by modern society is truly scandalous. They are herded into great cities where they breathe a fouler air than in the countryside which they have left.” – Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England

Whereas Engles came from Barmen, Kingdom of Prussia, the artist Phil Collins moved to Berlin, from Britain. Back in 2017, a 3.5 metre monster of a stone statue, fractured and left for ruin was moved from the eastern Ukrainian village of Mala Pereshchepina to Manchester. As part of the Manchester International Festival, it was unveiled as part of a show called Ceremony, featuring songs and dance, with a ditty by the Super Furry Animals’ frontman Gruff Rhys. In an unassuming carpark, the procession moved over to Tony Wilson Place and all around newbuilds sat and towered above old mills, relics of the Industrial Revolution, and people sipped coffee from Starbucks cups and held Tesco carrier bags. The statue passed by Engels’s birthplace in Barmen, Berlin and was subject to great interest.

“The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers.” – Principles of Communism (1847)

Like Christ, Mohammed and many other Gods, their words have been responsible for countless deaths through misinterpretation or abuse. They have been used by the powerful to suppress or enhance those who choose to use them. Think Trump with Twitter, or Elliot Carver (actor Jonathan Pryce) in the 1997 instalment of James Bond, Tomorrow Never Dies. So, having a legacy or words and ideas, a multifaceted figure arrived to Mancunian soil. A now-outlawed sign of communism may now be outlawed in the Ukraine, but in Manchester this statue of Engels symbolises the then, the now and the future. The scar where the statue was severed in half of the waist is clear. The artist Phil Collins had negotiated the statue as a gift from one community to another. Its journey was documented – with a video commissioned.

The writer of The Condition of the Working Class in England, in sculpture form fits in with the spirit of Manchester. A radical, against the establishment and for the people. The concrete structure looms over the paving slabs below, featuring patches of lichens and a broad beard. The very city he once developed his philosophies in has changed much but many social issues remain. The horrific conditions of workhouses have gone, but in the COVID-19 days of capitalism and struggle, new challenges are present. I’m lucky, as are many Mancs, that we grew up later in better times. Our Engels though, he was here when misery and suffering were commonplace.

“Manchester is a meeting point. It represents both the birth of capitalism and the factory system and the magic of capitalism, the magic of surplus value.” – Phil Collins, The Guardian, to writer Charlotte Higgins (30/6/2017).

Engels had such an influence on what would happen in the 20th century that even today, his relevance and legacy is present. This German philosopher, historian, communist, social scientist, sociologist, journalist and businessman understood Dialectical materialism and Continental philosophy whilst remaining a keen advocate of solutions to class struggle. So, on July the 16th 2017, Engels came home and Manchester had a bash to mark the occasion.

As per the ideas of Collins, he shifted a statue from one space to another, and an idea from one place that once embraced communism to one that in all fairness skirts closer to Labour and Socialism than the media would have you think. Now in 2020, we’re seeing statues of slavers, Romans, imperial figures and all under deep scrutiny. Just as Saddam Hussein and Colonel Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi fell, so to, are the busts of Sir Winston Curchill and co. It’s like a historical hunt in the manner of Operation Yew Tree, but without BBC stars. Just like some of the childhood stars of old, even the big guns of history are there to be torn at with our claws. #BlackLivesMatter is opening a whole range of debates and dialogue.

“That the Materialistic Socialists will improve H. [History] for the poor. Their best writer, Engels, made known the errors and the horrors of our Factory System.” –  Lord Acton, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), pp. 181–82

It has been around three years since we could dress up like Engels, make banners or talk with academics in the then named Engels Exchange at Tony Wilson Place. The statue still stands. The beauty of history is that it has happened. Now we’re in an era when more and more history is being questioned. That’s good. That’s evolution in action. We have to be careful what we do with our history. Some statues remind us of different times and give us a voice for that period. They don’t always need to be celebrated and respected. They stand as a reminder of progress. All symbols must be questioned. It is our right and instinct as a species to want to be better. History shows us that Marx was more celebrated than Engels. As Engels slaved away writing Marx’s notes and supporting the Marx family, Marx had already departed this world. Engels may have come from a wealthy cotton-mill owning family but his time from 1842 to 1844 was profound.

In memory of those who have died in the workhouses and during this modern austerity.

Bypassing Liverpool since ’94

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This week Liverpool F.C. won the Premier League. Well done to them. There has been some boasting [19?] and gloating [mainly aimed at Man Utd and City]. James Milner, now a Champion at Liverpool F.C. had left Manchester City for pastures new and ended up in Anfield. He could have taken a train, car or even a ship to his new club.

Manchester by the Sea may sound like a crap funfair placed by a pond in Heaton Park, but it is actually a title of a movie by Kenneth Lonergan released in 2016. It won awards for acting and stuff like that. It has a soundtrack that doesn’t feature Oasis, The Charlatans or the Happy Mondays. Is it worth seeing? Not a clue. I’ll get round to it, but this movie set in the seaside town, first settled in 1629, of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts hasn’t got me yet. No hard feelings Casey Affleck.

Mark Vincent Collins, of The Charlatans, was born in Barton-on-Irwell, which is almost Manchester, but we call it the City of Salford. The Barton Swing Aqueduct allows a canal to pass over a canal. This Roman invention of the Aqueduct was modernised to become a moveable navigable aqueduct. It was a first at the time and many believe it is still the only of its kind. It opened in 1894, year of Manchester City’s naming, and remains working now Built to last by a Derbyshire firm from a plan by Sir Edward Leader Williams. A proper leader he was. So much so, few, if any have followed.

Birmingham may be the city of canals with more miles (56km/35 miles) of canals than Venice (42km/26 miles) but Manchester started the modern canal trend. The Bridgewater Canal runs from Runcorn to Leigh via Manchester. There was no river or stream. It was all dug in deep and long. Since 1761, steamboats, barges and small boats have utilised this modern canal. Used to ferry cotton goods and materials from the sea by Runcorn to Manchester and beyond, and vice versa, the canal was a great innovation. But, after over a hundred years if use it got mucky and couldn’t handle the traffic. Small ships could no longer navigate the near-impassable rivers Mersey and Irwell. The Irish Sea was an awfully long way away.

So, Manchester, faced with the problem of low rainfall, an expensive and limited railway cargo network and rivers ‘hopelessly choked with silt and filth’ (Owen, David, The Manchester Ship Canal, Manchester University Press) removed the barriers. Liverpool’s excessive goods fees had made it cheaper to head east to Hull for goods. That wasn’t good. On October the 7th, 1882 Punch magazine illustrated that Manchester’s idea to bring the sea inland was laughable, “MANCHESTER-SUR-MER. A SEA-DUCTIVE PROSPECT.” Proposals, legal matters and paperwork were underway, and within five years the ground for a new canal was broken.

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Opened a few days after completion, on the 1st of January 1894, by Queen Victoria, the Manchester Ship Canal was 58km/36 miles long. It is now the 10th longest ship canal in the world. At the time of opening it was second only to the Suez Canal (193km/120 miles) in terms of length for ship canals. Setbacks such as the lead contractor dying, harsh weather, floods (in a dry canal!), and serious money shortages, it was a miracle the canal had been completed. The Pioneer, a steamer, owned by the Cooperative Wholesale Society unloaded sugar that first day. Rouen, Normandy (France) and Manchester were connected and the Stereo MC’s weren’t around to record it.

There’s a great bleak and brown looking landscape by Benjamin Williams Leader (brother of lead engineer Edward Leader Williams) entitled ‘The Excavation of the Manchester Ship Canal: Eastham Cutting with Mount Manisty in the Distance’. Short names for paintings were evidently being rationed around the Long Depression era. The scarred Mount Manisty, Cheshire (a 30m/100’ tall hillock from earth extracted to form the ship canal) sits over the canal in present day and with its coating of trees, it looks to have been there forever. Manchester Liners used to pass this point and their ship the Manchester City, launched on the 27th October 1898.

The oldest proper canal is the Grand Canal of China (大運河 A.K.A. 京杭大運河; Jīng-Háng Dà Yùnhé or the Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal). It was started in the 5th century before what is known as the common era. Since then, this now UNESCO World Heritage Site, has ran over 1,794 km (1,115 miles). This Chinese mammoth of a canal is mostly improved rivers, watercourses and some extant diversions of rivers. Merchant Marco Polo, scholar Ibn Battuta, Italian priest Matteo Ricci and Scottish tea-hunter Robert Fortune went to the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was intended for barges and not shipping.

By comparison, the Panama Canal, opened in 1914. It is 82km long and now is the 8th longest ship canal in the world. The Port of Manchester was once the U.K.’s third-busiest port. Just as the Panama Canals fortunes flagged then raised again, so did Manchester’s Ship Canal. Following slumps from the 1950s to 1960s, the Manchester Ship Canal almost faded away. Nowadays the city’s ship canal ends in Salford and is home to Media City (IV, BBC, Coronation Street, Blue Peter and CBBC), the Imperial War Museum and other leisure facilities, such as The Lowry Centre. You can still take a cruise to the sea – by way of leisure on regular excursion boats (take the Snowdrop from Irlam Locks). The Port of Manchester closed in 1982 and it wasn’t until regeneration kicked in around Salford Quays in the 1990s and then a greater rejuvenation in the decades that follows that the Manchester Ship Canal experienced a new wave of glory.

Far from the times when the Manchester Blitz saw bombs rain down on Trafford, the Manchester Ship Canal and the Port of Manchester, the sights now are much more of green banks and pleasing on the eyes. There’s prosperity around the wharfs, Detroit Swing Bridge, and the National Waterways Museum sits by the Ellesmere Port branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. There’s still a heart beat to the old ship canal yet.

Peel Holdings owns both the Manchester Ship Canal and the Port of Liverpool. Port Salford and the Atlantic Gateway may arrive by the year 2030. The locks, sluices and weirs of the old Manchester Ship Canal are far from closed yet. Ships will continue to sail under the high-level Acton Grange Railway Viaduct, as Network Rail work overhead on the West Coast Main Line, and the dramatic Queen Ethelfleda Viaduct Britannia Bridge (Runcorn Railway Bridge). The linear port has been accessible for over 125 years now and the once nick-named dirty ‘big ditch’dug by navvies is synonymous with the name of Manchester.

In memory of those who died creating the Manchester Ship Canal.

The Man on Brazennoze Street

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There’s a global pandemic on. The coronavirus and its related disease COVID-19 has ravaged the planet, taking at least 411,277 (from 7,238,611 infected) lives. Racism is being warred against too. As protestors and police get close and personal, belief and freedom are risks. Standing up against police violence, draws people into a dilemma. End or delay the battle against racism? Contribute to the spread of a potentially fatal disease? If you choose to overwhelm the NHS (National Health service). The virus doesn’t care one iota about your race. You’re ostensibly more likely to die if you are black, Asian or Middle-Eastern, so is it safe to protest? What are your thoughts? For something that disproportionately affects minority communities, that are now coming together in protest, well this could be a huge disaster. Beliefs versus risks. In my mind, I’d want to support the protests, but I’d want to support and protect the NHS too…

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

I used to eat at Shirley’s Café or Gregg’s bakery and get a breakfast barmcake with a coffee, when I worked on the corner of Brazennoze Street. Here I could walk down the road and see something odd. Manchester has a statue living down the road from Albert Square. High upon a granite plinth the distinct shape of Abraham Lincoln can be seen standing. That’s right. Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), 16th President of the U.S. of America. He’s been stood on Brazennoze Street since around 1986 eyeing passers-by but casting no judgement. The street runs between Albert Square and Deansgate gaining large footfall around office hours.

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln

The square opening on Brazennoze Street is known as Lincoln Square. Few know this. There aren’t many signs and up until a recent renovation nearby, the square has largely been overlooked in favour of the more marketable St. Anne’s Square, Albert Square and the Corn Exchange frontage. The pedestrianised pathway uses red bricks so common within northwest England, and on a damp rainy Mancunian day, it isn’t a place to go looking for escape. A few saplings and trees can be seen nearby but it doesn’t feel very green or warm. Manchester, like many port cities (we have a Ship Canal don’t you know!), has links to slavery. Any city with an insurance company or a bank does. Sorry Liverpool.

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Our Lincoln, the our kid of that America, used to be stood down Platt Fields Park. The son of William Howard Taft (27th President of the U.S.A.) made it. Charles Phelps Taft’s statue was one of two gifted to England – not Manchester, as a symbol of Anglo-American togetherness. One replica ended up in London, as the capital city. The original was left in Cincinnati, Ohio where Taft Junior was mayor.

The other replica was kind of posted to Liverpool but Manchester Art Gallery put in a sneaky bis in 1918, kind of a precursor to eBay outbidding and snatched it from Scouse hands [see also Demba Ba and Steven Gerrard]. London, then went one better and brought a much larger replica of a different Lincoln statue, in what can only be seen as a pissing competition. London urinated higher. By 1919, Manchester’s Lincoln statue was added to Platt Fields. By 1986, Manchester wanted to give more prominence to Lincoln and the cause. It was moved to Lincoln Square and placed on a new plinth. Beneath it a plague reads, “The support that the working people of Manchester gave in their fight for the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War…….By supporting the union under President Lincoln at a time when there was an economic blockade of the southern states the Lancashire cotton workers were denied access to raw cotton which caused considerable unemployment throughout the cotton industry.”

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“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.” – Abraham Lincoln

Manchester’s liberal values and Lincoln’s cause became as one. Britain was an ally. Reportedly even the Confederate Flag flew on some Lancashire mills during the American Civil War. Decades of air pollution and legendary Mancunian weather had left it neat impossible to read the words on the statue of Lincoln’s plaque. His Royal African Company displaced around 80,000 people (men, women and children) to America. Manchester’s statue of Lincoln is seen as a key point for the opposition to slavery. Known often as the ‘Great Emancipator’, Lincoln was part of society’s push towards progression and racial justice. Some argue he was a racist, some don’t. But, what can’t be chalked away from history are the facts. Lincoln made a difference, in far more difficult times for many, especially Africans and African-Americans. What should be taken from Lincoln’s appearance in Manchester, is that Lincoln, like many of his peers was complex character and times, which may explain why he apparently wanted to re-colonize the former-slaves, or send them back to Africa…

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.” – Abraham Lincoln

The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act came in 1807. Almost 213 years later a statue was torn down, toppled and sank in Bristol. The name Colston has long been known. Edward Colston was a 17th Century slave trader. A bastard and a blight on British history, part of the very tapestry that had built an Empire. Around 10,000 people paraded the wreckage before the statue was scuttled in the harbour. Around this time Sir Winston Churchill’s statue is London was sprayed with additional text, ‘was a racist’. Scottish streets were renamed after police brutality victims. Oxford University is a target due to its links to Cecil Rhodes (think white supremacy, colonialism and racism).

Whilst Abraham Lincoln was unsure about what to do with slaves after the end of slavery, now society finds itself at a road where one terrible death has triggered a wave of protest. There is no room in society for racism. Many of yesterday’s heroes or founders of today’s world are not good. Just as many companies has profited from the Nazi persecution of Jewish and other ethnic backgrounds, we have to embrace the atrocities and learn.

“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” – Abraham Lincoln

JAB Holdings (Reimann family) that own Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread and Pret a Manger etc have admitted to profiting under the Nazi regime. French cosmetics company L’Oréal have been tied to illegal property seizures. Barclays Bank (established 1690) has already compensated Jewish members who had their assets seized in France. If you have heard of Siemens, Bayer, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Allianz (Bayern Munich’s ground which is weird for a club once taunted as a so-called “Jews’ club” by Hitler’s twonks), Audi, BMW, IBM, Hugo Boss, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen well you may have heard that they are some of the corporations that made some money from forced Jewish labour. These historic crimes were after black slavery (to and in America), yet seem to have been discussed more openly. History cannot afford to hide indifference.

“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.” – Abraham Lincoln

We’re in the 21st century yet a few idiots want to keep us in the past and destroy world relations. The less said about ‘Miss Hitler’ and Trump the better. We can reshape history and move artefacts that our forefathers and mothers saw fit to decorate cities and towns. We don’t have to be proud of all of our heritage. We don’t need to hide it all. We shouldn’t be hiding any of it. I was born a European and next year, I’ll just be British. I’m human and I am Mancunian – and for me being Mancunian is all about embracing people no matter where they come from, what they believe or who they support (even if it is United).

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

爱与和平 and love

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Suffragette City: We can be heroes

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“Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.” – Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story

Suffragette City by David Bowie was a song released in 1972. It was a B-side. That is to say that it wasn’t the focus of the single release. Starman, had that honour. Later it would appear on several albums, compilations and even other singles. Bowie had offered this song, written by himself and co-produced with Ken Scott to band Mott the Hoople. They politely said no thanks but accepted a song called All The Young Dudes. This piece of glam rock has a history before it was even recorded. It even references the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Suffragette City has wonderful rousing lyrics, great guitar work and power. An Occasional Dream, Heroes, and John, I’m Only Dancing are some of my favourite choices of David Bowie music. However, Suffragette City has an aura like no other. These tighter two-semitone gaps (F-G-A) really drive the song. That dummy ending, “wham bam, thank you, ma’am!” fires you back into an encore of chorus. It’s such a great track and one fitting for the growing theatrical rock and swagger of the 1970s.

Manchester though, should be the Suffragette City itself. The sometimes-called ‘powerhouse of the north’ was of course the birthplace of the Suffragette Movement. Our very own Mancunian superhero, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters battled hard against money and power, for the people and for the women of the world.

“Governments have always tried to crush reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no Government have ever succeeded in doing this, they go on trying in the old, senseless way.” – Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story

Emmeline Pankhurst’s former residence is today a museum and home to Manchester Women’s Aid (against domestic violence). The Pankhurst Centre, a pair of Victorian Villas, was once home to Emmeline and her three daughters Sybil, Christabel and Adela. They were all immensely political. Between 1891 and 1907, they lived together under those roofs and flew the flag of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The small house that is a museum features banners and sashes of the original purple and white colours.

“I want to say right here, that those well-meaning friends on the outside who say that we have suffered these horrors of prison, of hunger strikes and forcible feeding, because we desired to martyrise ourselves for the cause, are absolutely and entirely mistaken. We never went to prison in order to be martyrs. We went there in order that we might obtain the rights of citizenship. We were willing to break laws that we might force men to give us the right to make laws.” – Emmeline Pankhurst

Against the backdrop of cheap labour and a lavish textile industry, the city prospered as the spine of the industrial revolution. Here Socialism was birthed and Labour Unions formed. Community values were thrown at the establishment in their droves. So, with class division and heated change, up popped widow Emmeline Pankhurst. Her late husband Dr. Richard Pankhurst had been a barrister and sympathiser to the cause. There was immense risk to all for taking on the Edwardian overlords. Many were killed, many imprisoned and other atrocities committed towards them.

“Every man with a vote was considered a foe to woman suffrage unless he was prepared to be actively a friend.” – Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story

Manchester’s Free Trade Hall now replaced by the Radisson Blu Edwardian Manchester, was built in 1853. It was a place central to Manchester’s progressive and radical history. The Corn Laws were repealed, and this building was a celebration of that. The building also stands on the site of the infamous Peterloo Massacre. Here, at St Peter’s Field, in 1819, 15 people were killed by the government’s cavalry and police. Over 700 people were injured. Like some of today’s global protests over the late George Floyd, these peaceful protestors were met with disproportionate aggression. At the Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, during 1905, suffragettes Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst pushed to fight for votes for women. Watching in the wings was a future prime minister, and then Liberal Party member, Winston Churchill. He offered to pay their bail but was refused. Five years later as Home Secretary, Winston Churchill would direct the uncompromising Police against Emmeline Pankhurst’s protest march of 300 women to Parliament Square. Politicians do like a good U-turn.

“The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood, and for these deeds of horror and destruction men have been rewarded with monuments, with great songs and epics.” – Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story

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Manchester has embraced pride in Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragette Movement. On St. Peter’s Square, just to the side of the Metrolink tramline, stands a proud Emmeline Pankhurst statue. Artist Hazel Reeves opted for Emmeline on a chair, a nod to her speech, “Rise up, women.” Some of her original and other Suffragette pieces can be found down the road, at the People’s History Museum. There are telegrams by Emmeline Pankhurst. The collection is a pure conservation to the history of working people in the UK. If you’re a student or an interested historian, this is the place to go for interpretation and study material relating to Suffragettes. It is all wrapped inside Henry Price’s former hydraulic pumping station. The Museum of Science and Industry and Quarry Bank Mill provide further atmospheric links to different times.

Quarry Bank MIll September 2019 (30)

“My conduct in the Free Trade Hall and outside was meant as a protest against the legal position of women today. We cannot make any orderly protest because we have not the means whereby citizens may do such a thing; we have not a vote; and so long as we have not votes we must be disorderly. There is no other way whereby we can put forward our claims to political justice. When we have that you will not see us at the police courts; but so long as we have not votes this will happen.” – Christabel Pankhurst

Influenced by her mother, Sophia Craine, Emmeline Pankhurst passed on her strong character to her daughters. On the 14th June 1928 died in a nursing home in Hampstead. She was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. Her legacy is well-known.

“The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.” – Lucretia Mott, U.S. Quaker, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and social reformer.

Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, DBE, born of Old Trafford (22nd September 1880), and was laid to rest in Santa Monica, California, U.S.A. in 1958, the day before Valentine’s Day. She had spent two years exiled in France during 1912-13 and directed the militant action of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle had an airport named after him for his exile in World War 2. Christabel Pankhurst was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her dedication to public and social services. Of course, being British, and like many Suffragettes she had several blue plaques placed at places she frequented, mostly in Notting Hill.

“Mothers came to me with their wasted little ones. I saw starvation look at me from patient eyes. I knew that I should never return to my art” – Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was part of the alma maters of both the Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1956, she moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with her son Richard at the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie. Her social and healthcare work there earned her a state funeral. She died as an honorary Ethiopian. She is buried as the only foreigner with patriots of the Italian War, alongside the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Her son, Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst OBE was a British academic and founding member of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.

“The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world. I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled the more I gain.” – Susan B. Anthony, American social reformer and women’s rights activist

Adela Constantia Mary Pankhurst Walsh (19 June 1885-23 May 1961) would move to Australia, far from her birthplace in Chorlton Upon Medlock. She would be the co-founder of both the far-left Communist Party of Australia and the far-right Fascist Australia First Movement. She spent some time in a Japan, before returning to Australia to face prison for her advocacy of peace with Japan.

“Now all we need is to continue to speak the truth fearlessly, and we shall add to our number those who will turn the scale to the side of equal and full justice in all things.” – Lucy Stone, suffragist and abolitionist.

Today the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, Helen Pankhurst CBE is an international development and women’s rights activist and writer, as well as a Visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her brother Alula Pankhurst (Manchester University PhD: Social Anthropology) is a social development consultant. His focus is Ethiopian studies and the Young Lives multidisciplinary, longitudinal study, multinational study. Like Alula, Helen Pankhurst CBE has two children and remains heavily connected to her Eithiopian heritage through CARE International.

“I’d rather go down in history as one lone Negro who dared to tell the government that it had done a dastardly thing than to save my skin by taking back what I said.” – Ida B. Wells, prominent journalist, activist, and researcher.

There are huge parallels to what’s happening in America and the world right now, with regards to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Much can be learnt from the Suffragette movement and their struggles. Let’s look at the Minneapolis City Council who have decided to disband and break-up the Minneapolis Police Department. They have formally committed to forming a community-led Police system. The system was broke, and many should – and hopefully will have the right to fix it. By the people, for the people.

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The Red Blue (or is it a Blue Red?)

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I’ve never interviewed and election candidate before. I’ve never really given any questions to any political representative unless you count pinging a tweet at President Trump in anger.

Being located in China and taking into account the eight-hour difference, I finally pinned down Brahma Mohanty. Had I have been clever enough, we could have discussed politics during summer in depth over ice cream at Ginger’s Emporium in Affleck’s Palace, Manchester. Back then the world was a different landscape and Brahma wasn’t due to stand as a Labour party representative. Bizarrely, I did feel and tell him that’s where his future will be if he so wants it. So, here we are at the last broadcast (of the day).

 

Isn’t politics boring?

Brahma shakes his head. He knows my question is tongue in cheek, yet he comes back with a dismissive answer like a knife to my jugular, “In many ways football and politics can be the same. Both can be complex and dramatic. We can be perplexed. When things work, we can be exhilarated, and I think it something that we can all be passionate about. If we don’t have a say it affects us all in our everyday lives. Whether it is accessing the best healthcare or public transport – or the economy affecting pricing on everyday things and even the cost of a football game ticket.”

davI need a bit of an education. Is Brexit worth worrying about?

“Just as how these are turbulent times for Manchester City on the pitch, it is the same within British politics,” Brahma has tailored his answer to catch my interest. Off he goes again, “Now is the time to get involved and the stakes couldn’t be any higher, in terms of this election. The results will determine how Brexit is resolved. There could be a crash out of the EU with a hard Brexit. There could be a gentle yet painful Brexit with a deal that is favourable to few. Perhaps, a renegotiation that protects our workers and our rights – with a final say on the matter can be agreed. I believe Labour can offer this.”

Brahma is blue City fan. He’s also red (for Labour). I’ve heard City fans say that the vote the Conservative party because they’re blue. Politics is a contentious domain. Was choosing to represent the Labour party a difficult choice?

“Not at all,” Brahma confidently swats the question a swift reply. He continues, “Since my parents came here in the 1970s, they have voted in every election that they have been able to vote in. Now my parents weren’t necessarily politicos but they always identified more with Labour. Labour’s position on inclusivity, respecting and advocating a multicultural society gave my parents, as Indian immigrants, a voice. Britain back then wasn’t always a great place to be in but they felt that the Labour party were for them, more so then other party groups.”

So, it came as a natural selection to stand with Labour?

BManchester city centre 12th July 2017 (78)rahma beams with pride, “My family have had a longstanding involvement with the NHS, which as you know was created by Labour. Commitment to values of equality for all, whether within education, housing or healthcare were followed by my family. That has been influenced upon me deeply by my family. Supporting the Labour party when I was first eligible to vote allowed me to be in touch with society in a very inclusive way. I grew up in a region of the world where the Labour party has always been very well represented. Manchester has a great history tied to Labour’s roots and the left-wing side of politics.”

How confident are you right now?

“I’m confident that I am going out there now,” Brahma replies, “giving a positive message about that I and the Labour Party have to offer, and offering the people of my potential constituency and also across the country in marginal seats a positive progressive vision in contrast to what we’ve had to put up with in terms of austerity and the Conservative Party for almost a decade. I’m confident that this message is getting out there to our people. Obviously, we won’t know until the final polling results next week.”

What difference can you make?

wx_camera_1533826817200“In terms of difference of what I can make,” Brahma’s eyes lock on mine, deeply showing his passion in his words, “I will advocate for the policies I’ve mentioned before. We need a much more strongly and robustly supported NHS – to ensure that everyone has the best access at the point of need. Further investment into public transport, will enhance connectivity, and improve logistics whilst assisting to combat climate change. Less cars will mean less fuel and less carbon emissions – but for that we must have an efficient public transport system that isn’t seen as grimy, unreliable and aged.”

Why did you choose to set a course into the world of politics?

“Drawing on all my personal experiences,” Brahma shuffles in his seat, dropping words from his soul with confidence, “whether, it was growing up in and around Greater Manchester, my involvement within Labour and in terms of overcoming barriers and obstacles, which I’ve had to encounter quite a lot. Not just in terms as a person of a different ethnicity, but also with regards to my disability and mental health issues. TV shows such as The Last Leg and London 2012’s great Paralympic games have really swayed people’s opinions and moved us away from the term disability to realise that everyone with a disability have real genuine abilities to shine. Whilst these things may have prevented certain times of my education and career, I want to draw on my personal experience to lead and set an example by applying it to my role within the Labour party team. I want to demonstrate that anything is possible. People don’t need to be held back. Nothing is impossible with our own powerful minds.”

What are your beliefs in terms of the NHS?

P70821-144016“As I have mentioned about the NHS, it obviously needs more than a lick of paint,” Brahma states. He pauses before carrying on, “It needs a greater level of funding to ensure that we can maintain a high standard of care and assistance. Despite a decade of under this awful austerity-driven government, the NHS is still regarded as great institution domestically and overseas. It is often cited as one of the best systems in the world – if not the best healthcare system on Earth. As a Labour candidate and the Labour movement, we want to ensure that this is always the case. It cannot be privatised and sold off, to make needless profits. We’re proud of the NHS legacy – and want future generations to have the support and fallback of the NHS with them from birth to death. It makes Britain great.”

And how do you feel about the hotbed that is the railways?

hdr“Railway networks need improving to allow people to get from A to B. Our commitment to combating climate change, means we need less cars on the road and with that less carbon emissions from fossil fuels. An improved transit system such as national railways or tramlines within cities, gives people the chance to make use of an efficient system of transport. That’s the bedrock of what we believe in, in terms of improving public transport.”

For the current and potential students out there, may I ask your views on tuition fees?

Brahma’s educated answer follows, “Scrapping tuition fees stops people from being put off by further education. You shouldn’t be stopped from learning because you can’t afford to attend university. Let our people in Britain pursue their degrees and careers that they wish to. Do we want an enhanced talent pool in our country?”

Can a Mancunian truly represent people from a completely different region?

olympic celebration 2012 (26)“As a Mancunian, I can bring the spirit of never say die, hardworking determination and grit, and I suppose politics is like the current Man City team, international, diverse and going out there each week wearing the badge and colours in pride. The last decade has been the most successful period for City. I can take example from that. You don’t necessarily have to have been born in a place or from the area to advocate the best for the people there. We’re all people at the end of the day. Manchester has the People’s History Museum – a kind of de facto unofficial museum of the Labour party and the Labour movement. Not far up the road in Rochdale, we have the birthplace of the Cooperative movement. I believe that there is a museum there too. Manchester and the industrial past have been a hotbed of socialism. That naturally influenced upon me. Like the industrial revolution, Manchester’s reach has been global – and doesn’t seek to impose itself unfairly.

There are 650 seats in the House of Commons. That’s 650 possible MP positions. Why Surrey Heath?

“Coming into an area like Surrey Heath, with a fresh pair of eyes can be very beneficial, “Braham affirms. “Being able to draw on my own experiences from my time working and living away from Manchester, I can apply this to the role. Just like in a sports team, each woman, man or youth player brings a different set of skills and talents – whether international or locally-born, they all sit under one banner representing their team with pride. And I’m not just talking Manchester City! This could easily be that of England – in rugby or football terms, amongst a whole host of teams.

326 seats are needed for a majority party to assume a government. With the last few elections leading to coalition governments, do Labour have a chance for a majority party government? How do you view the opposition?

“In terms of the opposition, I’m unhappy with what I see in terms of a decade of austerity that has really affected British society. Homelessness is on the rise, armed force members – past and present, lack real support, young people can’t afford to get onto the property ladder, more people are renting than ever before, or even still living at home with parents. There’s an increased use of foodbanks. This climate of austerity has led us to where we are. Do we want to be here?

The ill-feeling created by austerity is, I believe, what drove people to vote for Brexit. This conception that it was immigrants from within the EU and beyond were to blame for issues domestically, when in fact, it was as a result of Conservative-led austerity, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The terrible thing with the Brexit is not only has it impacted on the U.K.’s economy, the value of the pound sliding, but it has created an uncertain job market. Businesses are feeling the instability. It has created divisions and tensions. In the last three and half years, hate crime has increased, whether racist, anti-Semitism, homophobic, transphobia, Islamophobia, or other abuses. Brexit has unleashed a lot of bad characters, looking to put their views upon the majority of us – giving a footing for the far right. Do we really want to lose our neighbourhoods to hate?

I feel that the opposition should be held accountable for these divides and the rise of hate. I hold them responsible for what we have right now. An era of tension and division that has now led us to have a General Election, at this time when most of Britain could be better suited to enjoying Christmas – but under such circumstances, we’re hopping outside in the cold weather to cast votes. Simply put, the country is at a crossroads. We are in a period of uncertainty. ”

In what is a safe seat (historically) do you feel you have that extra sparkle to really challenge the established MP?

“Do I have that extra sparkle? I’m under no illusions that this is and always been a very safe and stable Conservative seat since its creation,” Brahma straightens up his body. He is now looking very serious. “I focus on the best possible message that I can provide, which is a positive progressive message as an alternative to the austerity-driven policies like those offered by the Conservative party, like figures such as Michael Gove have been at the foreground promoting – and indeed Surrey Heath, like much of the country was divided upon Brexit, so I’m offering a progressive view on that. I want to avoid a focus on appeasing those who voted for Brexit, or those who seek to revoke Article 50 whilst ignoring the concerns of those who voted for Brexit. The Labour party is committed to supporting the 100%. What we’re saying is, that we’re unhappy with the deal that has been carried back by Boris Johnson from the EU, which offers no assurances on the economy, business, workers’ rights, or job protection. What we’re saying, if we get into power, we want to renegotiate the deal with the EU. Once that has been done, we want to do what we believe, the most democratic thing of all – and put that information and ultimately the decision to the British people. Some may say that we have already voted on this matter, and that was the end of that. In some respects, yes, I can understand people feeling that way but at the same time, none of us could put our hands on our hearts and say that even now, we knew exactly what Brexit will or has meant. The referendum needed clarity and clear discussion. In 2016, did we have the right information? Given that the picture and the landscape of the Brexit decision has changed many, many times. Many of those who have backed a no deal have flipped sides. Many of those who voted for Brexit have changed their minds. The processes have been complex and unclear to many. I don’t think that it is unfair or irrational to say that the British people should have the final say upon our future following our negotiations because this is something that is going to affect our people in the here and now – and for future generations.

Individuals must be registered to vote by midnight twelve working days before polling day. That point has now passed. I Does voting really matter?

“I think it is absolutely essential to vote now,” Brahma’s head is full of ice, yet I can sense his belly is full of fire. He resumes, “Those who can vote, must vote. As I have stated before, this General Election is because of Brexit. It has been almost a century since we had an election of this kind in December! Brexit is probably the biggest event to affect this country since the end of the Second World War. The effects will be felt by the British people for years to come and it will have an impact not only British society but on Britain’s standing in the world. It is absolutely imperative that of you have a view on this matter – and you’re eligible to vote, that you cast your vote. Obviously, I’d hope that they would vote for the Labour party, but it is more important to vote on this matter knowing that by not doing so, you’ll be losing your say on Brexit, the NHS, the future of transport within the UK, housing, or the homelessness crisis. Voting is such an important part of the democratic process. It is one that many people have fought for and died over. All around the world people still continue to do so. It is vital to be part of that process – especially now as we reach a very marked point in the road for Britain’s place in the world.”

 Just to be clear, I personally assigned a proxy vote via my mother in Manchester.

 Much is being made of the power held by younger voters. Can younger voters make a difference to their regions?

“This is the first time that those born after 2000 will get a chance to vote. This will affect their futures more than anyone else. Cast your votes. Listen to the debates from all sides. It is so important that younger people embrace politics. Get involved.”

SAMSUNG CSC

Finally, do you have any further comments to make?

“It is vital that people vote. The key issue is Brexit. That’s why we’re having a General Election on a cold winter’s day. Just like the last General Election, people must have their say. Whilst some party groups say that will get Brexit done or conclude the matter, it is worth noting that the Conservatives have had three Prime Ministers since the referendum and are no closer to resolving the impasse one way or another. Only the Labour party is offering a viable proposal to this. At the same time, our policies are far more than the NHS. We have focuses on the NHS, improving public transport, looking after our elderly communities, scrapping tuition fees and so on.”

Brahma can see that my attention needs a kickstart. He glibly closes with a statement, “Politics is just like football. It has highs and lows. It has moments that we will remember for a lifetime and there are times that leave us completely stunned. Just like Vincent Kompany’s goal against Leicester City last season, or Aguero’s last minute winner against QPR in 2011/12, you can feel such highs in politics as well. It only works with involvement and togetherness – making that contribution. People must be involved. I support progressive values with the Labour party. We must fight for the many and not just the few. As I always say, one of our great sayings within the labour movement, by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we do alone. That underlies any team sports, just like at City. Yes, some has come due to investment, but investment alone won’t create a team. Everybody has played an important role in the club, behind the scenes and across the field – and that’s how Labour must be. We need a team for all.”

Andrew Marr, I am not. Thank you kindly for your time Brahma Mohanty – and best of luck for Election Day 2019.

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

 

1982 was a year like any other.

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste,

Today, I am 36 years, 11 months and 26 days old. That’s 443 months and 26 days of age, or in simpler terms, I’m a week shy of hitting my 37th birthday. To some, age is a worrying number. The bigger the number, the closer to life becoming death, to some eyes. These 1929 weeks and 4 days have not flown by, but with my mind and memories, some remain so vivid and others lesser. My mind is a wonderful store for 324,240 hours of my life. Life is precious and I have been lucky to know so many great people. Along the road, there have been tests. I don’t believe anyone can live without a test, but of the 19,454,400 minutes, there have been rewards – and I truly believe more will follow. The number, 1,167,091,200 isn’t the exact time spent discussing Brexit, or the accumulated added time at Old Trafford. It is the seconds of my life. Every second counts. The building blocks and foundations of the past led me to the present. The future is before me.

I was born on a Thursday in Autumn 1982. That October day’s weather was in a year which had the coldest night of the twentieth century. The internet tells me it was around 11°C and sunny on Manchester. There was no snow in Manchester and wouldn’t be for some time – although Ben Nevis in Scotland had already seen snow earlier that month. 14 out of 15 of the hottest years globally have happened in my lifetime. Droughts, flooding and climatic changes have been witnessed year on year since.

For Manchester, The Smiths, had been performing with drag artists and dance troupes, only a few weeks before I was born. Their debut gig would be followed be decades of musical recognition. These days Morrisey and my personal favourite Johnny “Fu****g” Marr are solo acts. The jazz collective Blue Rondo a la Turk ’s whereabouts faded, save for the current Matt Bianco jazz band link. BBC Radio 3 held a Manchester Midday Concert, direct from the Royal Exchange Theatre on October the 28th, 1982. As Vossi Zivonl played the violin and Roesemarie Wright on piano ploughed through Schubert Sonatina No 3, in G minor (0408), I was making my way into a musical world. Do you really want to hurt me? by Culture Club was top of the music singles charts, during the week I was born. The Beatles, with Love Me Do, held 4th. Tears for Fears with Mad World, Eddy Grant’s I Don’t Wanna Dance, and House of the Rising Sun by The Animals occupied the top 20 spots too. (Sexual) Healing by Marvin Gaye was new, but only entered at number 50.

1982 was a year like any other. Things happened as they often do. Manchester University Press published Puma, a sci-fi novel by Anthony Burgess. It talks about a future in which loss would be encountered – on a cultural and literal level. It is an immense piece of reading. The story echoes today. The Pope had visited Heaton Park. I’ve been lucky to see high points of history, some up close, and sad enough to see stuff happen that shouldn’t happen. Mankind has an often-conflicted relationship with being civil. I was born on a day that Spain’s socialists won/communists lost in the national elections and NASA launched the RCA-E. First Blood was on at the movies, as opposed to now, where Last Blood is showing. Good old Rambo. It does feel like original movies aren’t gambled on anymore – or become so niche that they hide in arts festivals.

Just 5 days before I was born, Old Trafford, home of Man Utd experienced a game of football. City hadn’t won there for 8 years – and wouldn’t until 2008. Manchester City’s Dennis Tueart and David Cross each scored to equal the home side’s Frank Stapleton’s brace of goals. The day before my birth, City beat Wigan Athletic in the League Cup, held at Maine Road. Two goals by Paul Power were enough for the squad containing big Joe Corrigan, Ray Ranson, Bobby McDonald, Kevin Bond, Tommy Caton, Dennie Tueart, Kevin Reeves, David Cross, Asa Hartford and Graham Baker. Unlike today’s listing of seven substitutes, no subs were noted for that game. Two days after my birthday, City won 2-1 at home again. The Division One (Old) goalscorers that day were Asa Hartford and Dennie Tueart. City were suffering a cup drought – and that continued until 2011. Now, times are different. That’s life. That’s time.

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

Add Vim or Gin & Tonic?

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste

WHO AM I?

“Everything in life is difficult: Being young, being old.” – Dag, TV series 3, episode 4 opening credits.

What is the meaning of life? Such a common question. I wonder why that is always the big question. Is the answer really 42? Many in religion argue that a scientific mind is a major cause of an individual’s crisis in meaning. Is it that there is almost a denial that an interplay of gases, chemicals, genetics and biology can lead to a meaning? Our amoeba cousins are prime examples of life. The humble farmed hogs being hunted the leopards of Mumbai too. Look outside and see a butterfly flutter by, and there is the answer. Survival. Google the wrong term without a safe search and you’ll no doubt stumble on the other answer: propagation.

Without completely telling religion where to scatter, I won’t force my beliefs on those who believe. Rag’n’Boneman will back me up. I’m only human, after all. I do however favour a logical and scientific approach to life, and higher beings don’t exist in it. No prophets, Gods, Goddesses, Deities, immortals, idols, or divine beings for me. I do believe in nature as a force. Holy beings are a no. Caterpillars changing to butterflies are a yes. The bible is young. God, the one Him and He that is mentioned in the new and old testament is quite modern, which I find strange and a little questionable.

Depressingly life is quite simple, and it seems us numpty humanoids complicate things. Is the glass half full? No. Is the glass half empty? No. The glass exists, with something neither incomplete nor complete inside it. It can house more or less than the state it was in before two simple questions were presented. Is the glass full of water and air in an unbalanced state? Is the water warm, cold or hot? Who put the question into a glass? Why not a whiskey tumbler? Are tumblers a glass? How many other glasses are stood full nearby? Can the question apply to tins of Costa Coffee x Coca Cola? Will that make it into a Costa Express machine to be delivered free one day?

Books, movies and songs have always been good companions. I fear that I will let others down, or myself down. I need a ray of sunshine to pick me up. Other people’s wonderful creations give me hope. They are my sunshine on a dark day. I’m in a foreign land where not everyone speaks my tongue. Few do. Even then if I can speak with someone, no matter how close they are, I cannot be sure that they truly understand me. Linguistic and cultural barriers exist in regions, countries, political beliefs and thoughts too. My humour is not Andy Warhol, and not Billy Connolly. It is just me, plain old and simple me. To have fingers put upon emotions, by others, and shared before eventually reaching you is simply delightful.

“Almost everything will work again of you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott, novelist

The trick of life is surviving it by feeling achievement. Somewhere in our DNA is an answer to a problem. Perhaps we don’t know of it. Perhaps we never will. Perhaps our species will have evolved time and time again rendering that answer obsolete. Relationships in our lives may dip, ebb or fade away. That’s life. Kick it in the dick and move on or engage in conversation. Have a natter with a good friend – or help your significant other to understand you using words. If that fails, there are alternative lifestyles like nudist camps, swinging, or cycling around the world jobless. Not every mould of lifestyle choice will fit everyone. Find that extra vim. If something feels dead end and meaningless, change the goalposts and seek the verve and vigour that you need. Too many people die with regrets. To quote William Wallace in Braveheart, “Every man dies, but not every man really lives” or something similar to that. Goodbye triviality, hello exuberance.

“Animals, poor things, eat in order to survive: we, lucky things, do that too, but we also have Abbey Crunch biscuits, Armagnac, selle d’agneau, tortilla chips, sauce béarnaise, Vimto, hot buttered crumpets, Chateau Margaux, ginger-snaps, risotto nero and peanut-butter sandwiches — these things have nothing to do with survival and everything to do with pleasure.” – Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

For me, I think people around the world would love a bit more understanding and togetherness. There are all too many bullets to chests, too many factories billowing crap into the air and too little respect being shown by leaders to their people. More empathy, less greed and a dab of extra worth wouldn’t harm anyone. No need to power up a supercomputer for 7.5 million years. However, we can still dream and look to the stars for hope or worship our chosen beliefs.

When I was at university and failed my first year, I felt lost. Why was I suddenly studying Behavioural Biology, far from home, running up a debt that clouded my hunger to study? I didn’t have a clue if it would get a me a career or a pathway into “the real world” (as students would often say). I did know one thing. Here I was far from home. Independent. Going solo. The reading of books and the routine of lectures wasn’t for me. I stumbled through years of studying and almost zero revision. Did I feel that I had failed? No. It was a challenge and I was out of my comfort zone. I learnt about myself in more ways than I thought possible. The wisdom of hindsight has taught me that.

THE EMPIRE ON WHICH THE SUN NEVER SETS

With more opportunity people are free to find their purpose. As it stands Braveheart is being remade on the streets of Hong Kong, in a historically flipped up situation made by Great Britain. The British Empire, at its peak in 1920, covered almost a quarter of the Earth’s surface area. After losing 13 colonies to the U.S.A.’s birth in 1783, Britain headed east and towards Africa. The Pacific was ripe for picking. For 99 years, starting in 1815, Britain became the Team America: World Police of the day. As Britain became challenged by Germany and the U.S.A.’s rise, the cracks that allowed the outbreak of the Great War were laid. In 1922 Ireland became free of British rule. Other territories would soon follow. Britain’s eastern empire fell with Japan sweeping over the supposedly impregnable Singapore, sewing the foundations for New Zealand and Australis to go alone, eventually.

Decolonisation, a decline in the nation’s strength and crisis after crisis (India, Palestine, Suez, the Malayan emergency, the Cold War, the Falklands…) haunted Britain – and the scars are visible today. Ireland and Northern Ireland remain divided and with Brexit impending the real threat of further trouble threatens the U.K. like a dark cloud. And if anything is to go by, the troubles will be back, because Rambo, Charlies Angels, the Terminator and Top Gun are still in the cinemas. Do we keep making the same mistakes in order to sell movies?

By 1983, Britain held 13 or 14 overseas territories. Penguins, Indian Ocean post boxes, a rock in Spain and a place near a triangle make for a nice holiday. Three islands have no residents but retain some scientific or military presence. Perhaps, Area 52 is located on one of these islands. Five of the territories are claimed by other nations. Interestingly, 52 former colonies protectorates are still party to the archaic Commonwealth of Nations. That Commonwealth is non-political, apparently. The U.K.’s royal family still head 16 states too, making their divorce from the U.K. most bizarre.

In the U.K., I worked for Aviva Insurance, for about 5 years. It didn’t feel meaningless and they were an okay employer. The corporate machine offers comfort for a not-so-amazing salary. Internal transfers are plentiful, but promotion in an age of very few people retiring, or moving on, didn’t help me. The work wasn’t too significant to me and my enthusiasm dropped, but to Joe Public and my colleagues, I kept plugging away, not like a robot, and not with any ambition. At this stage I’d lost ambition completely. Communication with other people and understanding were concepts that I was enjoying. This would start me on a pathway to teaching in China. A place where I would miss my favourite drink Vimto.

Vimto & Maine Road (Manchester City’s former home ground) have an unusual connection: Vimto. In 1851, the U.S. state of Maine was the first to outlaw alcoholic beverages. Manchester City Football Club’s then owners named the new ground’s road after this U.S. state. Temperance was quite a popular social campaign, much like Twitter campaigns like Jake Parker’s Inktober. That temperance movement made Vimto popular in the U.K. and gave Vimto a gateway to the world. The Middle East embraced Vimto long before Manchester City were heard of. The Saudi company, Abdulla Aujan & Brothers, had the sole rights in 1920s – and in a place with no letter V in their alphabet. A strong movement of division that brought about togetherness in a way…

Casting aside an ego, or stoning to death a worry, over time, my mind has finally understood that worries help nothing. Yet, I still worry from time to time. On buffering my soul and a kind of system reboot, I synch in time with my interests – and then look at the challenge freshly, dealing with it at a suitable pace. My pace. Not the pace of anyone else. You can only be yourself. With that, you can find yourself. And in Wales, I had the chance at Aberystwyth to discover and uncover myself.

EUROPEAN BENEFITS vs. EUROPEAN

The EU objective one funding was the best thing to happen to Wales. Without those projects being continually supported and the preservation funds for other cultural projects then central UK government will not listen so easily… division is a big problem and a stupid democratic vote, based on lies and bull pooh has done nothing but destabilise the UK – and division is everywhere. The people are too busy to notice the profits made by those who really benefit from this joke of a situation. If people need to campaign and protest against a silly democratic moment, so be it. An ill-informed minority of victorious voters will determine the future of the people? No. Is that remotely fair? No. Is it a fair to cancel Brexit? No. Remember, if you have been mis-sold PPI, you were entitled to claim the money back. So, the chance to force a legal process and decision into being over-turned is also democratic. Good luck with your 14 days money back refunds on trousers at Asda in the future. So many knock-on effects will happen.

Map it out. Our heads endured puzzlement and the pro-Brexit campaigners did not give clear reason to leave. The remain campaign dug a web of truth and lies to battle back. The leavers and the remain side argued until the cows came home. Then, someone bet on this, that and the other, standing to make a lot from the destructive nature of a messy divorce. The media twisted, turned, repeated, replayed and shot out word after word of noise. A campaign of vilifying and anti-heroism ran head on into a white-headed knight with a weaker than broken past record. That’s where we are now. Britain is no longer great. It is heading for isolation and absolute irrelevance as politically respectable nations go.

Isolation is not good for me. I am a loner when I choose to be. I am an outsider in my mind, but part of the team when I am welcomed or when I am welcoming others to the team. I like the natural flip on and out of things that some call being a social butterfly. I share an intimate and open friendship with my best friend Dan. I won’t hold back from telling him anything. With past, present and if-it-happens-it-happens possible future relationships, I hold back. I fear being hurt; I fear giving too much. My past experiences, and I know I have never been perfect – and Lord knows how many mistakes that have been made, have been made, but deep down I have never wanted to hurt anyone. I can be selfish and distant. Concealing my head in the sands, as the world goes by, is proof that I am part Ostrich. If I feel too constricted and less free, I tend to hide away or feel anxious. There is an itch where there should be calm. My eagerness to cycle off forever in the style of Forrest Gump running away, becomes a serious thought. At least I understand me. Well, most of the time.

The human brain is complex. It can handle algorithms, algebra and aardvarks. Confusion can reign supreme over absolutely anything and it can be caused by the weather, girls, boys, life and money – amongst a larger list of factors. There are poems, songs and crossword answers stuck inside our head. We just have to find the time to let it all out. Dripping it out like a slow roasted coffee works for some. Blurting it out like a Slipknot machine gun lyric for others. The same two options may work for one or the other at any given time.

The unfamiliar and strange don’t scare me. I worry more about monotony and uniformity. I don’t want to be a rebel outcast, but I do want to do my own thing. I enjoy being a service and teaching. I enjoy writing, even if it is to no-one in particular. This writing serves me well, it is the warm-up, the cool-down and the practice for work in progress. When work in progress becomes actual work, then I will feel that I have made an actual progress. There is method to my madness. In the meantime, I want to be like those who have left a mark on me. The influences I felt as a child. Mr Jones who encouraged me at primary school in Chapel Street; strict Mr Meheran at Reddish Vale Secondary School; Mr Tony Mack at the same school; the very warm and wonderful Miss Roe, and Mr Kershaw at Chapel Street. I can’t be a lifeboatman or a laser eye surgeon, but I do hope that I can be a good memory.

A good memory of someone can help you spring out of bed in the morning. To take that memory and magnify it, tell it, share it and hope that it will improve someone. If a 16-year old Skye Terrier called Greyfriars Bobby can have his story told for over one a half centuries, there has to be good reason. Warm memories of our grandparents help them to live on through ourselves. As child becomes parent, the parent becomes the grandparent and a cheesy way of saying the circle of life continues. Otherwise, we’d be cold, lost at sea, and trapped in eternal darkness with monsters snapping at the end of our bed, waiting for a foot to lower into their bleak and unwelcoming mouths. Our harmony is in life. Life is wonderful and whilst the meanings may be simple and the answers to our daily grind may seem far away, we are NOT alone.

I like to focus my students upon being honest. I try to stress teamwork and community over finances and ability. We’ll build a city map with castles and dreamscapes, rather than focus on calculus and repetition of words. We’ll build a city map with castles and dreamscapes, rather than focus on calculus and repetition of words. I want the minds that I encounter not to be afraid of introspection and going it alone. Let each student show their talents step by step and here we go. Goodbye dreariness and hello variety. With Tip the Dog’s story in our hearts, we’re ready to jump out of bed tomorrow…

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

…I’m getting off?

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“Time spent among trees is never time wasted.” – Anonymous

你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste

Carbon emissions are one thing. The ozone layer and its depletion seemed to be the theme of the 1990s. But what about the other crap that we fling upwards into our atmosphere? As a species we have used our intelligence to create and combine a wealth of chemical knowledge to form so many new things. Earth had the basics and we adapted everything from nature into manmade conceptions. Our creativity spawned new fabrications and handiworks and we didn’t know their effects upon the natural world. Or, did we turn a blind eye?

So, where did this all begin? Manchester, of course. Well, not just my hometown, but pretty much all of Great Britain. Steam power, textiles, iron making and the inventors having a field day making new tools kicked off the Industrial Revolution. As fast as the spinning mule could spin, the revolution spread across Europe and to North America. As long as the cotton made on a loom could stretch, the methods of fast industry shout outwards across the world. Waters in rivers ran with colours and toxins unregulated. Skies turned black. Farming fields and forestry secumbed to the Cottonopolis that was Manchester. Coal demand shot up. Steam billowed upwards into the sky alongside toxic soot. The raw materials needed moving. Bridges such as Iron Bridge in England’s Shropshire set a new level of industrial infrastructure. Sir Richard Arkwright, Robert Peel, John Rylands and a  whole host of blokes became rich, powerful and industrial very fast.

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.” – Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer

Yorkshire, Lancashire, Salford, Cheshire and Manchester became central to many movements. Even today, Quarry Bank Mill, in Styal operates to show visitors of life back then. Alongside this, there are UNESCO sites in Derbyshire dedicated to Arkwright’s work and so on. The effect of the Industrial Revolution demanded true innovation and architects met the call willingly. Up popped Bradshaw Gass & Hope, David Bellhouse, Philip Sidney Stott, and others to build for the new era. With that power needed generating and John Musgrave & Sons, amongst other stepped up to the glorious age of steam and engine power. One such company, Mather & Platt still exist today in South Africa. Their 1817 origin by Peter Mather in Salford to John Platt taking over Salfird Iron Works in 1837 has been a diverse ride. They did their bit to enhance safety in cotton mills, distributing an automatic sprinkler; they expanded rapidly; they shipped the Machinery Annexe of the Paris Exhibition from France, up the Manchester Ship Canal and rebuilt it in Newton Heath by 1900. They expanded into Pune (India) before an Australian company purchased the company in 1978. After this Thailand, a German-takeover and still operate to this day. How many other companies from the Industrial Revolution era have gone on to become industrial powerhouses?

As a teenager I’d pass Houldsworth Mill, built by a design of Stott and Sons. The red brick mill had seen many cleaning jobs and now is housing accommodation fit for the rich and wealthy of today. Little did I know that at the time of passing that mill, I was passing a sister mill of ones found in Oldham’s Chadderton – not far from my Gran’s house. The factory system had given capitalism a huge kick up the backside. Like modern day China factory bosses, many factory owners back then in Britain became very rich, very fast. Some invested heavily in urbanisation for their workers. Healthcare, education and opportunity developed suddenly. A demand for better quality and fresher food followed. The standard of living improved. Did the working classes still feel the exploitation of heavy industry? Did each technological enhancement drown shances of a good swim the employment pool? Did they notice the smog building up?

“Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option … they will become a necessity.” – Fujio Cho, Honorary Chairman of Toyota Motors

Soon enough people got wise. Socialism and Marxism were born. People like Welshman Robert Owen influenced social care and reformation of working practices. Owenism became a movement, long before England centre-forward Michael Owen became a young mover of the footballing game. People were starting to see that the skies weren’t perfect. Something that has maintained to this day in the like of Greenpeace and others who don’t like too many airplanes in the sky.

“Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.” – Robert Owen, philanthropic capitalist and social reformer.

Convicted terrorist and former University of Michigan mathematics Professor, Theodore Kaczynski was quoted as saying, and writing,“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” In many ways, this is an agreeable statement. The western world gained considerable wealth and dominated the globe. Pollution, such as the legendary London smogs, the discolouration of tree barks, and the deaths of many aquatic species became general knowledge. The world’s population started a huge upwards trend. Natural resource depletion had begun. Chemical warfare on nature was now in full swing, battling against fresh air, clean seas and green habitats. The fossil fuels were now unlocked and ready to go.

“I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.” – Mother Teresa

As conditions improved generally for people, the speed of growth was unsustainable. Many became left behind. Poor working and living conditions, lack of education and healthcare and low wages alongside child labour amongst a whole host of problems arose. The world around humanity had fundamentally changed from a largely agricultural civilisation to one of machinery and motion. Even now, agriculture advanced with new machinery. Land could be used faster. Railways spread and communities grew ever closer. Dust tracks became lanes that became roads that became highways than became lane after lane of traffic. Sanitation had to catch up. Some countries dug drains and found ways to get those little poohs we do from the bowl to further along the water cycle, like the sea.

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there.” – Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

Disease occurrence escalated. We spotted new illnesses and cancers. Before we’d found the cures or ailments, more came along. And the more. And more. Still more pop up. Some were found to be linked to toxins, metals and exposure to manmade materials or chemicals. And today, our air is saturated with gases that reduce the protective layers of ozone (O3) needed to keep the Earth cool. Big hitters, of the fume world, chlorine and bromine atoms do huge damage. Just once chlorine atom smashes 100,000 ozone molecules out of the park. Wham. Gone! There are other similar ozone-destructive gases. This doesn’t take into account the gases that don’t reach the stratosphere. Some are too heavy to rise and end up in smoggy conditions or absorbed into our waterways.

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.” – Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee

One single rocket launch by NASA or whoever fancies a spot of space exploration, releases enough soot and aluminium oxide to deplete the ozone in a quantity far higher than global CFC emissions (chloroflurocarbon chemicals). So, expect to experience a few more UVB rays… and an added bonus of skin cancer might be swinging your way, unless by the year 2075 we can return the ozone hole to the levels noted before 1980. The 46-state signatories of the Montreal Protocol are likely to help. Especially, seeing as trump card Trump hasn’t exited it – but has yet to ratify the recent Kigali Amendment. Well he needs to concentrate on piping sales first. Trump’s record of science denial is alarming. His expected eradication of P.O.T.U.S.A. Obama’s Clean Power Plan is slowly gathering momentum, turning a nation that was slowly ridding itself of coal into a nation that once again will depend on coal. Please the fossil fuel industry. Fuck the world. The Affordable Clean Energy Rule is weak, at best. One mammoth nation does as a Twitter handle with a wig pleases.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright

Another gargantuan and colossal nation ploughs on with sweeping environmental policies. Public image pleasing, a sense of responsibility and a duty to the planet seem to be groing in China. China has undertook the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution at a lightning pace. It became the world’s manufacturing base practically overnight and maintained business as usual for a few decades. Since 2014, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment the People’s Republic of China has evolved. Headed by Li Ganjie (李干杰;). Steps have been small and steady but China’s eco-friendly energy generation is increasing. On top of this technology and environmental projects are under way left, right and centre. Qingdao will soon have an Eden Project – one of three in China. Laws, standards and regulations are being felt nationally. Shanghai has implemented strict recycling rules. Dongguan in South China’s Guangdong has many factories closing its doors because they cannot satisfy environmental protection laws. Policing is improving and implementation is going from lax to structured. Mega projects continue and this adds to the huge biodiversity loss of a nation that is suffering from significant environmental sustainability problems. Rapid urbanisation, energy demand and population growth won’t help – but some could debate China is doing more than the developed US of A. Resource demand shows no slowing as of this year… Much like the rest of the world – especially nations still developing.

“The Earth is what we all have in common.” – Wendell Berry, Poet

So, what now?

 

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

Plastic or Fantastic #2 Undisputable Brilliance

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste

In my opinion it should be a fact that, in football, and other sports too, all overseas fans are undisputable in their brilliance. The modern game has long drifted away from the traditional working class background of football fans. Women now attend games in their droves – and rightly so. The fanbases of many clubs feature disabled fan clubs and LGTGBTQ+ (I lose track of which letters are used and for who). This is ideal. Football isn’t a man’s game. It isn’t a girl’s game. It is for everyone. Whether disabled, a Martian or from Wales, the sack of air that can be moved around as a team is for all. I love it. It is such a simple game, to watch and to play. You can be Messi or you can be messy.

The benefits are more than just commercial. If 800,000 people a season visit a Premier League game from overseas, that means many will indulge in local cultures, see our towns and our cities and feel our way of life. They will join the clubs and their future identity. To some, they will worry – and others will feel xenophobia but surely 1500 Norwegians a week at Anfield ploughing money into the club isn’t all bad. Visit Britain used Ryan Giggs, when he wasn’t busy tapping his brother’s wife, to promote a “Football is Great” campaign a few years back and the Premier League is one huge advertisement after another, with some cracking games amongst the dull ones, that sell it.

There are negatives. Half and half scarves have grown out of hands. For cup final merchandise, it is a little acceptable. For a friendly game versus a team you’re unlikely to face in a competition, it is fine. In the league, against your rivals, no, sorry, no room for half of your opponent’s name on the scarf… Yokohama F-Marinos versus Manchester City, now there is a good memento. City v Utd on a scarf. No. Never. It is bad enough having them in the matchday programme. Football tourism in huge stadia is possible and can’t be seen to destroy the traditional fanbase. Those fanbases must adapt to survive and prices for tickets need to be local no global. Some fans know more about Football Manager, Fantasy Football than reality…

TV coverage has erupted outwardly, over Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland and east, west and south. The Premier League monster has become a global competition – the true super league for global talent. Asia and Africa are joining the league coverage fronts with consummate ease. As New York watches at breakfast, China watches at supper. Social media platforms and interactive coverage allow for unparalleled levels of game coverage. Long gone are the days of trying to find City at Watford on Setanta, or turning to Teletext for a goal update. The Pink has been replaced by Twitter, Facebook and a dozen other live feeds.

Young fans may be priced out of the game, but from the pocket of overseas fans, come a bunch of middle-class and well-to-do sorts. They visit the clubs shops and they buy as much as, if not more than the local fan. These purchases are akin to a pilgrimage to Mecca City [C’mon City Football Group, buy that club!]. Those keyed up on the latest game e.g. FIFA ’98 or wherever we’re up to now, have had a virtual education. The stats have been drilled in and names memorised. There is a blurred line far unlike seeing Tommy Doyle play for Manchester City’s EDS and then make the first team. These fans learn whoever is on that game, and hero worship tends to sway away from up-and-coming players or names. That is, until they’re exposed – and then the overseas fans are wild. These Harwood-Bellis types are wearing the shirt – and close to the dream of the fan. The two can evolve together. They can share memes and tweets, and all that, in ways older generations never came so close to their boyhood heroes (sexist comment? Yep).

The mass markets are open and with that you’ll get a crowd. Inevitably, plonk enough fans together and eventually you will get a truly fanatical kind. Those who form official supporters’ clubs and actively chase the dream of watching their club and being involved in their own ways. That’s what makes me admire the overseas fans. Anyone who watches a game in bed, on the other side of the planet or gets people together to share their passion and cheer City (or whoever else) on deserves credit. Modern football is expensive – and to trek around the globe seeking a game or two – or attend an overpriced friendly featuring a handful of first team regulars, with no idea of what the game will be like, gets my hat off, and placed in the air. Hats off to you. With your worldly curiosity, cultural awareness and passion, you’re welcome at the Etihad Stadium anytime. We are stronger together. We are Manchester City.

Manchester City’s presence in China, over recent years has created a new pocket. 13 Official Supporters Clubs, up from 3 at the time of their last tour in China in 2017, are spreading the sky blue gospel. City’s website, TV and media has punched highly at their fans, with huge following increases. It engages and it supports, holding an annual meeting with the Chinese OSCs. Like Match of The Day, they engage tradition and add a modern twist of flavour. Each meeting has given a great insight into City’s China strategy and set-up. They’re in it for the long-term. What I like to do, is encourage the newer generation of City fans to watch their local teams, watch some non-league football, see any games at professional level that they can and take from it as much as they can. To understand the game and the passion of fans, sometimes it is best simply to observe with no objective. I think fans of City, on the whole, understand football very well. They follow a local non-league team or they at least ground-hop around local clubs.

“I told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it was a matter of humanity” – Sugihara Chiune

Sugihara Chiune is sometimes referred to as the Japanese Oscar Schindler. He helped around 5,558 Jewish people escape persecution and probable death in Europe.  It was on this day, many years ago that he led with peace…

 

Next up, I’ll write about the jaunts around Nanjing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Yokohama flying the sky blue flags… when I am awake more.

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

Next stop: Nanjing

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste,

34 years ago, Richard Skinner mentioned, “It’s 12 noon in London, 7am in Philadelphia. And around the world it’s time for Live Aid!” That’s the legendary concert that plays ever so well time and time again. But, whilst Twitter is trending, did the concert have an actual reason for showing? Seems to be of little note in all the flashbacks across the interweb. Whatever the problem was, it must have been fixed.

 

“All we hear is 👏Radio Ga Ga 👏…”

CITY OF SHANGHAI

SHANGHAI PIN BADGE IDEA 1My checklist from 2016, of things I must do in China has been reduced. I ticked off visiting Qingdao, flying a kite, and in five days, Shanghai, a city my grandfather visited will be marked off. I triefd Chinese art, caligraphy and kung fu. All were insults to their heritage. At least I tried once or twice.

Changning, Baoshan and Pudong districts of Shanghai once had Marks & Spencers. The city has a French concession region and the Bund is world famous. So, will I be in China or a European city? I’ve been reading up on things to do, places to see etc. Aside from City’s game versus Newcastle Utd or Wolves, I’ll get cultured in five days when I visit Shanghai.

#1 Shanghai Museum #2 China Art Museum (Line 8) #3 M50 for urban art & Jade Temple (玉佛寺/Line 13, Jiangning Road) #4 Xuhui Riverside Park wander. #5 Jewish Refugees Museum – and the ghetto in Hongkou #6 YuYuan Park #7 Sculpture Park #8 Wusongkou Paotaiwan (Line 3: Shuichen Road) #9 The 1933 Old Millfun #10 Zhujiajiao water village (Pine 17) #11 Huangpu’s Garden Bridge #12 Chuansha park #13 复兴公园 Fùxīng gōngyuán

I’m still trying my best to understand customs and Chinese culture. I’ll mark it as done. It will go on forever. I’m still trying to learn Mandarin (slowly).

The things remaining from that list of 33 now stand at just 5:

1. Visit Kunming and Yunnan.

2. See the Terracotta Warriors.

3. Visit Hangzhou, “Paradise on Earth”

4. Check out Jiuzhaigou.

5. Visit Chengdu.

CITY OF NANJING

NANJING PIN BADGE IDEAFirst up, tomorrow I travel to the 2008 Habitat Scroll of Honor of China city that is Nanjing. I’m looking forwards to seeing the City Wall of Nanjing (南京城墙 Nánjīng chéngqiáng), a wall that heavily influenced the Forbidden City of Beijing. The Jùbăo gate (聚宝门 Jùbăo Mén) looks atmospheric. I may start my wall walk from Zhonghuamen Station. Keeping with the word city, there is Shítóu Chéng [石頭城] or Stone City by Hanzhongmen Station. Maybe I can look up Purple Mountain (紫金山 Zĭjīn Shān) because of City’s new purple trim. It has UNESCO status of some kind and many places to view that you wouldn’t see every day (the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: 明孝陵/Míng Xiào Líng). The Ming Palace [明故宫Míng Gùgōng] located by Minggugong Station will be a good place to explore too. Most call it the ‘Forbidden City of Nanjing’. Or, for ceramc value, I can check out the Great Bao’en Temple [大报恩寺].

Nanjing seems to be a city famed for mausoleums and the massacre during China’s bitter war with Japan. The museum of the massacre [Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall 侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆 – Yunjinlu station, line 2] will be an emotionally addition to seeing the Nanjing Museum. Then there is a museum dedicated to Nazi Party member John Heinrich Detlef Rabe who saved sheltered approximately 200,000-450,000 Chinese people from slaughter by the Japanese. Rabe was the Nazi party’s local head, as a Deputy Group Leader in China. On one hand, he saved, on the other hand, he supported the Nazi cause. However, he did something monumental and saved many, many lives. Following his return to Germany, the Gestapo prevented Rabe from reaching Hitler. In his hand letters and documentation. His desire to influence Adolf Hitler and pass a message to the Japanese to cease their activity never was heard.

“It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs.” – Rabe’s diary notes: December 13, 1937.

Soviet NKVD agents for Russia and then the British Army interrogated John Rabe following the war. He had a miserable few years following de-Nazifying. However, The Good German of Nanking (his wartime diary title), received food, aid and cash packages from the grateful people of Nanking. This continued until the Communists took over the city of Nanking. In 2009 a Chinese and a western movie portrayed John Rabe’s wartime experiences.

In 1948, the citizens of Nanking learned of the very dire situation of the Rabe family in occupied Germany and they quickly raised a very large sum of money, equivalent to US$ 2 000 ($ 21,000 in 2019). The city mayor himself went to Germany, via Switzerland where he bought a large amount of food for the Rabe family. From mid-1948 until the communist takeover the people of Nanking also sent a food package each month, for which Rabe in many letters expressed deep gratitude.[18]

The south bank city of Nanjing sits in the Yangtze Basin. It was historically known as Nanking, which I believe was purely to confuse me. China’s Three Furnaces are Wuhan, Chongqing and Nanjing so I won’t be expecting to see any snow. The average July temperature is 28.1°C (82.6°F) and I’ll be using the subway’s Jinlingtong (also known as IC-tong) to escape the heat between places.

On matchday, I’ll have a gander at My Town Bar around 3pm with fellow City fans. I wonder which City Legend will be alongside City mascots Moonchester and Moonbeam. Then it will be over to the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre Stadium – and I must get a quite unique photo opportunity with the Premier League trophy, FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Community Shield.

After Shanghai, I fly back to Shenzhen, whiz up to Dongguan and then zip over to Hong Kong the next day…

CITY OF HONG KONG

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā

Máo Zedong

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae,

 

Do I want to know the future? No. It may ruin the present. The past always calls for us. History repeats itself. The trick is to forget time and not follow clock, schedules and guidelines like the rigid forms that are presented to us. For that very same reason, I ate a bowl of Rice Krispies at lunchtime. They snapped, they crackled and then they popped. I’ve always loved cereal. It is my kind of drug.

Today marks the birth of Máo Zedong [毛泽东]. He ruled China for a long time. As the People’s Republic of China came about in 1949, his position as Chairman of the Communist Party of China carred great strength. Maoism, that is, his theories on military strategies, politics and thinking are still strong today. Devoutly nationalist and strongly anti-imperialist in his views, the boy from Sháoshān [韶山] led an interesting upbringing. His birth at a wealthy farm to a stern disciplinarian father he would encounter the odd punishment. He had siblings, two brothers (Máo Zélín毛泽淋 and Máo Zemin毛泽民;) and an adopted sister (Máo Zétán毛泽覃). Máo Zedong [毛泽东] was influenced by the the Xinhai Revolution (1911), the May Fourth Movement (1919) and later at Peking University in his exposure to Marxism–Leninism.

Máo Zedong led the 1927 Autumn Harvest Uprising [秋收起义; Qīushōu Qǐyì] – something which would gather influence to found the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army [中国工农红军Zhōngguó Gōngnóng Hóngjūn]. The Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet [中央革命根據地] state was formed in 1931 until 1934. The Long March followed this period of time. A military retreat would change the fortunes of a fledgling Chinese leader. The raging Chinese Civil War held a hiatus as both the Guómíndǎng [中国国民党] and the Communist Party of China (中国共产党Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng) battled Japanese Forces during World War II. For four more years following the war’s end, the civil war resumed. Máo Zedong eventually forced a retreat of the opposition to what is known by many as Taiwan.

The Great Leap Forward [Dà Yuèjìn大跃进] followed in 1957 giving industry to the people of a mainly agicultural land. As England’s football team lifted the World Cup in national football, China began the Cultural Revolution. Only in 1972, did China open a largely-closed doors to the western world. Máo Zedong met with American President Richard Nixon. In 1976, Chairman Máo died of a heart attack. He had led a life rich in poetry, intellectual debate, military strategies, and as a visionary. He drove imperialism from the lands of China. He started a modernisation of lands. He changed a fractured nation into a world power. He promoted the status of women, improved education and health care. The population of China erupted from 550 million or so to a whopping 900 million people. Life expectancy in China soared considerably. His influence and footnote in history is far-reaching.

Chairman Máo remains one of the most important and influential individuals in contemporary world history. Not bad for someone who once had an ambition to be a school teacher. He changed jobs and ambitions in his early years. The ‘end justifies the means’ yet his brain sought better and more knowledge. His interest in war procedures gave him a view of the Great War ravaging Europe. He developed a sense of solidarity with workers. His world opened-up when he moved to Beijing and became exposed to the bigger picture. Over the early years he travelled, witnessed deaths of close friends and family. Lambasting the governments of Japan, UK and US became normal practice. In the 1920’s he sought to work with the Guómíndǎng [中国国民党] and supported the then National Revolutionary Army in their campaigns to rid the land of warlords.

‘Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.’ – Mao, February 1927

Politically very confusing times arose following Sun Yat-sen’s [Yìxiān孫中山] death in May 1925. I’ve tried to understand Máo Zedong [毛泽东], his history and the formation of People’s Republic of China. It isn’t easy. I think i need to read more… and there is plenty to be read. This is what I decided to read when I couldn’t watch Morecambe and Wise today.

Enjoy the ramining five days of 2018. Happy Boxing Day, St Stephen’s Day, Wren Day, and Mummer’s Day.

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr

Unified separatism A.K.A. Almost Everyday Shit™

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你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae,

The U.K. or to give it its full title, the U****d Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has batted above its level for many a moon. If the U.K. was a boxer, it would be Mohammed Ali in spirit but physically as tall as a five-year old Sherpa boy. Powerful nations in Russia, U.S. of A., the People’s Republic of China and India may boast population and resource, but the U.K. has one special weapon: Coronation Street.

The U.K.’s empire fell to pieces and global domination by corporations arose around the time Coronation Street actor Bill Roach was born. Something like that, I imagine. Then the U.K. let a few places go, under the old name of Great Britain, or the British Empire. Some places went from strength to strength, some struggled but overall most places opted to drive on the right side of the road, with that being the left side of course. The difference for former Empire countries and released dominions is that their exposure to the pacifying nature of Coronation Street has been undermined by something I like to call, Almost Everyday Shit.™

Almost Everyday Shit™ is something most British people have no exposure to. This is when some radical twonk, or some outlier within the genetic ensemble and base ofd Earth goes against the norm. They may stage a political upheaval, a coup, or an act of knobheadism.

Ever since 1578, the powerful ginger and then Queen Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. Britain started to steal lands. By 1913, the British Empire held power over 23% of the Earth’s population. The periods of time involved abandoned expansion plans to North America, Irish Plantations, slavery and numerous shipping companies. Britain invested heavily in sapping the East Indies, which ended up in bitter barneys with the Netherlands. Britain soon sought peace with William of Orange and the Netherlands fell into partnership. By 1720, Britain was doing quite well commercially. France and Spain were pests for many years. The battles with France at the Seven Years’ War and 1763 Treaty of Paris put shackles on the French as a rival. At the 1713-1715 Treaty of Utrecht, Spain took about two years to sign a deal to stop getting in the way. Something like that. Almost Everyday Shit™ swept across the Spanish colonies and French colonies.

By 1783, the Pacific was seen as fair game. So, Britain, having recently backed away from U.S.A. Jr. did just that and slipped a few boats eastwards. Almost Everyday Shit™ got in the way.

Just like those early British conquerers and forcers of learning English, I’m in China now and completely friendly like my forefathers. I bring with me cultural teaching and an attempt at wit, that probably falls closer to the term, Almost Everyday Shit™ – I can’t help it. I look through my goggles (beer not applied) at websites such as The Guardian [born as the Manchester Guardian in 1821], the Independent [founded in 1986 and for 8 years now Russian owned] and the BBC (a VPN is required now for the latter). Mostly all I see is Trump news, but moving away from farts, there is much more gassy news in this thing called Brexit. Firstly, I hate the term Brexit – British Exit from the E.U. because it sounds so childish. And it is. In an international market and a world experiencing division, we need more togetherness. Yet, here we have a divide and conquer move by the near right and central right of left wing. It depends who you believe. Conserve the status quo? Or, pretend it will save the N.H.S. money? Maybe even lie about it reducing immigration and asylum seekers. The whole debate was a farce of misinformation and deception. It was a bitter narrative countered by soft arguments and the British people voted to exit with a huge majority of 52% deciding the fate of all. Article 50 of the E.U. Treaty was invoked and as it stands Britain will go it alone from midnight (Central European Time) on 29 March 2019.

Frexit (where 45% voted to remain and a new vote in France is likely), a Dutch exit (51% votes to remain last time and another vote may follow) and Greenland’s loss in 1982 (where only 53% voted to leave) are all signs that globalisation is not a favoured subject, yet international relations are needed to avoid another Yugoslavia conflict or perhaps the Ukraine misplacing more territory. Almost Everyday Shit™ has been around for a while.

There can be arguments and conversations until the cows come home regarding the age of voters, a love for sovereignty, immigration concerns, those who feel left behind, a lack of integration or order, or perhaps an order that disregards traditional values and crushes innovation. General identity problems seem commonplace. I don’t see myself as English, British or European – I’m a Mancunian. An Academic, Eric Kaufman, observed there to be a strong correlation between a voter’s support for the death penalty and their selection to exit the E.U. Sorry to those who voted leave, but this parallel zealotry doesn’t speak for me. Moderation and debate have ended now, sadly. The ball is set rolling and the path of the ball could be bouncy, like a pinball, or perhaps it’ll take a strike at the end of a skittles alley. More likely it’ll leave the footballer with broken metatarsals and a desire to join a fanatical branch of the Women’s Institute. Almost Everyday Shit™ reigns supreme.

Older generations hark back to, “in my day” and “it was much better back then” – I’m sure it was much more romanticised when Spitfires and Vulcan Bombers were pouring off the production lines. Jobs, optimism and buoyancy had their arses slapped in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. As Great Britain downgraded to Moderate Britain, and manufacturing made way for servitude we all swapped Are You Being Served? for Downton Abbey, and in doing so, we all became servants to Mega Conglomerate – and their primary customer. Almost Everyday Shit™ became Almost Everyday Shit™. Did you question why? No, because you had an Apple iPad 9X-SUV edition with all the trimmings of a fucking all you can eat buffet. Well you made your bed and you can live in it, piss in it and crack on. Our grandparents survived the Blitz and probably spent most of it cursing bad weather. This is Britain and Britain will remain British in the sense, we all need to come together, have a jolly good knees-up and declare March the 29th our Independence Day. Like it or lump it, we are going alone, so why not have a new public holiday? An excuse to have an ale with a dollop of mushy peas on some fish and chips. Besides we can always be friendly to Europe. Spain needs our winter tourism. Germany needs our car demands. Italy needs our love for pizza and Greece isn’t a bad place to enjoy a mezze. Almost Everyday Shit™ had wars to fight.

All throughout the E.U.’s history, Albania has remained pretty much the same. Not unlike many other bitpart European nations, Albania has been largely overlooked. It is a twice rejected full member and labelled as a candidate member only. It doesn’t enjoy all the benefits. Why not? They rank higher than the U.K. and U.S.A. (by more than 60 places) in the Global Peace Index. What more does it need to do? The big club don’t want small members joining with ease. Fair enough but isn’t the union about unity? I’ve always been sceptical of the word united. Is being part of a bigger picture good or bad? Could local resourcing, local jobs and less environmental damage be a good thing for the U.K. going it alone? Will we turn to the great vast nations of India and China for a helping hand? Almost Everyday Shit™ can be strangely normal if we allow it.

I don’t care if the Union of Great Britain lives or dies. Nor do I care if the European Union collapses or strengthens. What I do care for, is togetherness and giving the people of the world a fair shot at life. To do that, to give a chance to all, requires a spot of social care and conscience. Do we have that now? Almost Everyday Shit™ is here and always has been.

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr

Dongguan Vs. Manchester

acton281 Comment

你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do,

 

I undertstand this is hardly a Batman Vs. Superman piece nor a Superman Vs. Batman script. Either way, to me, John, from that there city of Manchester, it is something that always makes me think. Manchester is home. It is my spiritual calling. Yet like places I have resided for a year or more, Dongguan now calls me and draws me back. Like that ex-girlfriend we all try to forget but can’t put of our mind eternally. You know the one. The one that got away. Not that I have that. I just hear others have that. I don’t. Honest. So, after Manchester, I lived in Aberystwyth (Ceredigion, Wales, U.K.), Plymouth (Devonshire, England, U.K.), headed back to Manchester before scattering briefly to Norwich (Norfolk, England, U.K.) before ending up here in Dongguan.

My time in Dongguan started in February 2014 at a township called Houjie. I moved to Changping in August 2017. Geographically, that seemed like quite a big move, which is odd as I left the U.K. for China, and that is a massive distance away. Stats can tell you anything and sometimes they reinforce the obvious. Looking around me, in Dongguan, I’d say this city is wider than any U.K. city; and bigger in many, many ways.

GEOGRAPHY

Manchester covers 243.4 sq mi (630.3 km2) whilst Dongguan covers 952 sq mi (2,465 km2). London sits at 671 sq mi (1,737.9 km2). Manchester has 2,553,379 people. Dongguan has a population of over 8,220,207 (just a few hundred thousand short of London). Manchester is the U.K.’s 2nd city. Dongguan is ranked as the number 8 city. London is the capital of the U.K. London has many underground rivers and surrounds the River Thames. There are ports, although many of historic or simple and small. By comparison, Dongguan has numerous ports as part of the Pearl River Delta megacity. Manchester has three rivers, the Irk, Irwell and Medlock – and a 36 mile (58 km) ship canal from Liverpool’s River Mersey’s estuary (this river starts in the town of Stockport, just south of Manchester).

TRANSPORT & ECONOMY

London has 270 subway stations and 366 railway stations. Manchester has 93 light rail tram stations and 16 railway stations. Manchester is the city that housed the first railway station and the world’s longest railway station platform (Exchange, Manchester/Salford boundary) at 2,238 feet (682 m) long. You could walk along the platform into the next station, Manchester Victoria. London claimed the first underground railway system way back in 1863. Dongguan has Dongguan station, Zhangmutou, Humen station, Changping has several stations but overall from Daojiao to the edges of Dongguan’s eastern outreaches there are collectively fewer than 30 stations.

London’s two airports (Heathrow and City) with four in close proximity (Stansted, Gatwick, Southend and Luton) open the city to the world. Manchester International Airport serves my home city. Barton’s City Airport gives Manchester two airports. Dongguan’s nearest airports are Shenzhen, Macau, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou.

HISTORY

Manchester’s history is deep. From Celtic tribes (the Brigantes), to Romans, the industrial revolution, German bombings in World War Two to present day terrorism, the city has evolved and throbbed with life and love. The Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium was created around 79AD (CE). The atom was split in this city. The first stored-program computer was built here. Attitudes have been born in Manchester, such as the formation of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement.

Whether it is sports, social impacts, scientific advancements, music, media, engineering, culture or architecture, Manchester has echoed around the world. Pop down to the oldest free library for such a feeling. Chetham’s Library is also where Friedrich Engels met Karl Marx. Marxism and industry have been felt in China for sure, so by default Dongguan was influenced by Manchester.

Dongguan is a baby yet has a history of human life tracing back about 5 thousand years, much like China! The city itself is but a few years shy of passing thirty [city status came in 1985], although Humen’s international impact stretches before 1839 and the First Opium War. Many local people understand this with respects to Anglo-Chinese relations. The city also proudly boasts guerrilla resistance against Second World War invaders. The move from agricultural to manufacturing arrived in the mid-1980s and has ploughed on relentlessly. The city has become globally important in a short space of time. I hear even NASA make some equipment here.

TWIN CITIES, DEMOGRAPHICS & ECONOMY

Manchester’s lack of coastline did nothing to prevent it being ranked the UK’s third largest port by 1963. However, nowadays the port has long been closed. That being said, shipping is opening on a smaller scale to specialist quays. Dongguan houses many overseas Chinese, coming from places such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. Manchester and London are ethnically diverse cities, each with more than 58% Caucasian people. Manchester has a noteworthy Chinese population. Dongguan has a few thousand foreign residents linked to shoes, leather, electronics, furniture and education. London has been a twin city of Beijing since 2006. Manchester has held strong twin city ties with Wuhan since 1986. I’m not aware if Dongguan has a twin city or town but I assume it’d be Wolverhampton or somewhere obscure like Greenock.

LANDMARKS, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

Manchester has many concert halls. These include the classical Bridgewater Concert Hall, the modern Manchester Arena, and nearby the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays. There are gritty and old buildings such as the O2 Apollo Manchester, Dancehouse, Roadhouse, and numerous theatres (e.g Palace Theatre, Opera House, and Library Theatre). Modern buildings sit side by side with old and creates a unique setting. Sports stadiums often host summer concerts. Outdoor concerts can also be found in large parks such as Heaton Park. London houses venues of great magnitude also, from the rotund Royal Albert Hall, to the Hammersmith Apollo to the huge O2 Arena, set in a dome. Parks always have summer concerts. Here Dongguan magazine is a good place to find events, as are websites such as Damai and Dongguan Today. Venues such as the Dongguan Nissan Basketball Centre and the Yulan Theatre provide a backdrop for major events. Square dancing appears to be the local thing, that and KTV at all hours….

EDUCATION

The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and Royal Northern College of Music make up three universities in Manchester. By comparison Dongguan is swelling with hundreds of kindergartens, and schools. Numerous colleges and the Dongguan University of Technology [东莞理工学院] create a fantastic pathway for learning opportunity. Manchester is growing and seen as a competitor to the capital city. London’s education base is globally mammoth. It is a truly international centre of education with more overseas students than anywhere else on Earth. Educational institutions and professional faculties cover every subject and basis of life. Like Manchester and Dongguan, London has a huge number of schools, colleges and further education centres in every district.

SPORT

Mention Manchester around the world and few people don’t recognise the name for football. Manchester City play at the Etihad Stadium, a short walk from the city centre. Manchester’s second team, Manchester Utd. are located outside the Manchester-boundary in the Greater Manchester borough of Trafford. Manchester Storm and Manchester Phoenix are the two ice hockey clubs. Manchester Giants, the British Basketball Association contender. There are lower league Gaelic football, rugby league and rugby league clubs. The city has hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2002; The FA Cup finals (1893, 1911, 1915, 1970), the Football League Cup finals, the 2008 UEFA Cup Final, and games from the 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, 2012 Olympics football group stages, and 1966 World Cup. The National Cycling Centre (a velodrome, BMX arena, and mountainbike trail), National Squash Centre and the Manchester Aquatics Centre. Lancashire County Cricket Club adds to a huge history of sport around the city. World class events are commonplace in Manchester.

Dongguan is the national basketball city with many basketball arenas and the Guangdong Southern Tigers. The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup will follow in the footsteps of the 2015 Sudirman Cup badminton tournament and 2018 Asian Marathon Championships.

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye