All our Traumas

Perhaps the period of my youth that had the most lasting influence on me covered the ages 10-13, when my parents sent me to board for seven terms in a fee-paying school about 70 miles from where we lived at the time. Recently, I took the time to think about what made those years so memorable.

Many of the factors have nothing to do with the particular school. While our brains learn most quickly at even younger ages, 10-13 may be a sweet spot while we can still absorb things quickly and without inhibition yet we start to have more consciousness of that process. That applies to both academic and social learning.

Then the fact that this was boarding school must have magnified this. To be away from mum and dad, surviving in the wild without a safety net, learning so many new things so quickly under so much pressure yet with such freedom, can only have sharpened all my senses and reflexes.

Many people consider the practice of wealthy parents sending away their kids to be cruel and selfish, and perhaps they are right. It is certainly a peculiar British tradition. Today the UK inherited yet one more prime minister from that tradition, warts and all. I don’t blame my parents – I am sure there was no selfishness involved for them, especially since my mum did not go out to work. I think their motivation was to develop me in the way that they observed the practice of the class they aspired to be part of.

Maybe they were right. Boarding was clearly an accelerant in my maturity. When I see how other kids struggle to leave the nest at 18 I wonder if some earlier preparation might have benefited them, though it is certainly a tough form of love.

But then there are factors specific to Ascham, a middling prep school of the sort immortalised by Evelyn Waugh, a school that was struggling, and indeed closed down shortly after I left. Such an environment could be considered a perfect petri dish for trauma.

The head teacher was closet, and for sure had some sadism in his make up. The head of maths, the teacher who got closest to minor prodigy me and gave me lots of 1-1 coaching, was subsequently jailed for paedophilic abuse. He also led the scout pack, supported by a Scot who cycled to work in a kilt and reputedly loved the cane, perhaps receiving as well as giving. The head of languages was one of the best teachers I ever had and was surely responsible for many cohorts of great linguists, but was clearly closet and tormented by it. The chaplain was as creepy a character as I ever encountered and I would put no abuse beyond him; he had an unhealthy liking for me, though I have no specific memories of abuse. The science teacher shot himself; I guess closet, depressed and sexually repressed. One housemaster was idle, a failed military and sporting man, who taught us the same page of his geography text book five times in the same year, and who imposed canings and cold showers on his flock. There were alcoholics, depressives and weirdoes of every kind. I cannot think of a single teacher at that school who I would class as normal. If I was chairing a recruitment panel today for a boarding prep school, maybe only the linguist would make the cut and many of the others might end up being reported to authorities.

That was the teachers, and it will not come as a surprise to discover the prevailing culture and the behaviours of the pupils. It was survival of the fittest, combined with strong doses of sado-masochism as kids were discovering their bodies in a single-sex environment. Any diversity of any form was ruthlessly exposed and ridiculed. I was victim and perpetrator. I was smart and learned quickly, but was a target for physical weakness and perhaps for intelligence. Last week I read an article in 1843 about the curse of being a prodigy: many of the attributes described fitted my own recollection of how I was.

In summary, Ascham was a trauma factory. I have had a few traumas, some obvious and acknowledged, no doubt others still hidden even to me. Ascham will have been behind many of those.

My purpose in this recollection is not really about my own trauma. It is to suggest that we all have some likelihood of trauma. It is much less than it was. It is worse in certain types of activity, like scouts or religious situations or boarding schools or theatres. It is probably worse in less developed countries where hierarchies and dangerous traditions are stickier and protections weaker. But, essentially, it is everywhere. And accepting that should influence how humanity moves forward.

An example of what I feel is the wrong way was a long article in the Guardian Weekly recently about the boy scouts of the USA. There were stories about three or four abusers and six or eight victims, and of slow and inadequate responses by the scout’s organisation to discipline offenders, recompense victims and institute less risky ways of operation. The tone of the article was shocking, as if the failings uncovered were somehow exceptional and catastrophic.

I find this style of revelation to carry several risks. This sort of abuse is made out as rare when many of us know from experience that it is anything but, so the story immediately loses credibility. The worst aspect is about sympathy for the victims. Having been a victim, and found a way through, there is a small part of me thinking: “get over it”, which is unworthy but real. In reality, it is like 100 NFL stars suffering many concussions. Most will be OK but some will not. Similarly, some victims will not have the capacity to move on. But painting their suffering as exceptional does not help them or their cause.

Then there is the attitude to perpetrators and the institutions. Making this abuse out as highly unusual as well as evil suggests vilifying perpetrators rather than seeking out what made them that way and what therapy might help. If the emphasis is all on blame and retribution, there will be fewer whistle blowers and more cover-ups, with institutions fearful that any admission will lead down a long slope to bankruptcy.

Rather, accepting that this used to be everywhere and is still in many places indicates a different approach. It is clear which sort of environments are most susceptible: single-sex situations with lots of discipline and physical proximity, with a climate of deference and power imbalance or where sex appeal is part of the allure. Let us focus on the present, and make such environments less common and less toxic, without destroying the good that some of them can do by imposing impossible restrictions.

Let us also celebrate the positive aspect of this; that things are getting better. Ascham did not make it to 1980, women now have some power in Hollywood, and sergeant major shaming is being phased out. At the individual level, people can indulge their cravings more easily now thanks to the internet and the reduced role of churches, while understanding clear lines of unacceptability such as underage or power-based exploitation. We are going forwards.

I also wonder whether some sort of amnesty makes sense here, at least for some sins of many years ago, to help institutions come clean and draw a clean slate. Victims still deserve compensation and perpetrators and those covering up need sanctions such as having to reapply for jobs and perhaps therapy. Serious crimes, hypocrisy and excessive cover-ups cannot be excused. And institutions would have a fixed time window to declare all former wrongs (redacted), make amends and have new practices accepted. Miss the window or fail to disclose in full and penalties would be draconian.

I am not trying to gloss over bad behaviour, and I find my own impulse of “get over it” to be shameful. But I do think we would go forward more quickly if we accepted just how widespread abuse was in the past and how pervasive it might still be in some pockets, and accept that the underlying causes can be identified and treated without witch hunts and without destroying institutions doing valuable work. Actually, I even think that all those weirdoes at Ascham did me a lot more good than harm, on balance, and that the potential for that positive balance has only increased because many of the weirdoes would feel much more comfortable in the society of today.  

On Looking Older

I will be 59 this week. If asked to guess, I would estimate that most people who look at me would go for an age of 65-70. It has been like that for as long as I can remember, and I never really cared – until now.

I think the main factor in looking older than I am is my white/grey hair. My black hair turned white during my 30’s. My dad was the same, so I guess I inherited that from him. I started balding quite early too – for that one I think I have to thank my mum’s dad.

Perhaps there are other factors. Maybe I have what people call a lived-in face. There was a time, when I was travelling extensively with Shell, that I think I did wear out my body a bit more than most, and perhaps my mind too. And for many years I was married to somebody unfashionably older than me, and maybe we come to look like our partners in some way. At the time, I found it an asset, because there were fewer embarrassing questions for either of us to field about our age gap.

Lastly, I probably dress old. Certainly, I have never given a second’s thought to fashion, only to comfort (and price). Last week I selected new frames for reading glasses, and I stared at the wall and literally could not find an ounce of preference between any of the alternatives, so asked the assistant to choose (among the cheapest ones) for me.

Overall, I think this lack of interest in how I look has been a blessing, because I see so many people constantly stressed out about how they look, and giving themselves anxiety and emptier wallets as a result. Of course, this typically applies a lot more to women than to men, at least until the recent rise of metrosexual man. I can consider myself lucky that I’ve only been actively looking for a partner for a tiny fraction of my adult life. And somehow, looks seem to matter more to men seeking women than the other way around – just one of many injustices.

For a lot of my business career, looking older was actually quite an advantage, because with the assumption of age comes one of maturity, seniority, experience or reliability. I was always happy to play along with this. The turning point comes around 40, when those assumptions become coupled with other ones about resistance to change or lack of stamina. But, even in my forties, I was quite happy for people to make those assumptions, since they helped me meet my career goals of not having to move and being seen as some sort of wise mentor.

I might be wrong in my guess of how old I look, but I do have evidence. The first time somebody offered me a seat in the subway (actually, I think it was a tram), I was well under 50. I was barely over 50 when a cashier in a supermarket gave me a 10% senior discount without so much as asking me my age. Mainly, I have learned to accept such things and to embrace the advantages – who would not want a seat on a long subway ride?

Other evidence comes when people ask me what I do – always a difficult question in reality. Recently, there has been an assumption that I am comfortably retired, an assumption which increasingly represents the truth, but one which means people must place me well into my sixties at least. The first time I visited the old folks home as a volunteer, one of the residents asked me which floor my bedroom was on! And my most extreme example was when we were once having dinner with a (admittedly rather old) couple and the man asked me, in all seriousness, what I did during the war! He must have placed me in my 80’s!

But now I have a little confession to make. Every time somebody makes an assumption that I am 65 or over, a part of me hurts a little bit. I think it always did, but hardly enough to register, and the pain is still tiny, but it is there. So I have to work out why that might be.

I think one part is about an unstated project as part of my retiring at fifty. I retired then because I felt that work at Shell would not be fulfilling in my 50’s, because I thought I could be a better family person as a retiree, and because I guessed that life might have a lot to offer somebody who did not have a large part of their waking agenda mapped out for them. I also had a goal of being fit at 55 and a sneaking suspicion that long working hours and lugging computers around and sitting in cramped departure lounges were not the best way to achieve that. It was a bold move, one that few have the blessing to even contemplate, and to an extent that move has defined me for the last ten years.

By all realistic measures the move has succeeded. I haven’t gone broke, I have never once been bored or missed corporate life, I believe I have indeed become a better family person, and life really has offered up wonderful experiences. And actually, I reckon the fitness part has turned out right too: my joints felt better immediately, I have had few scares, last week I climbed a mountain more comfortably than I could have ten years ago, and I feel sprightly physically and mentally.

So I guess part of the niggling annoyance about my looks is that I might have hoped that the success of my retirement choice would become obvious to the world in my looks. I could look 60 at 50 and still look 60 at 60 and maybe even at 70! Well, that hasn’t happened. Maybe my looks have only aged eight years during the last ten, but at that rate I’ll have to wait until I’m 100 to look no older than my age.

Then there is a darker worry. Do people who look older really die younger? Is how old you look really a good indicator for how healthy you are and how close you are to the end? I suppose this darker thought comes through as a natural consequence of reaching an age when some peers become sick or even die and I start getting a few diagnoses myself. Then I hear my mum’s voice in my ear when I told her I was retiring at 50, dismissive and claiming that idle minds have shorter life expectancy. If there is one person in my whole life I have always want to prove wrong, about anything at all, it is my mum!

So I suppose I have to confess to fighting a small secret fight, the beginning of the (God willing) long fight against slow decline that we all have to face eventually. In my case, the fight is magnified by the secret wish to prove to myself, and to the world, that the brave decision I took was a smart one.

I think such a confession is a good thing. Those assumptions about my age can do less damage if I am ready for them and can anticipate their impact. I can build up the counter story: I feel great, even to the extent of climbing mountains and overtaking everybody at the swimming pool; I believe that if I was actually just entering my last full year at Shell I would feel a lot worse physically; and I know that in that scenario I would have missed out on so much in my 50’s. That counter story will only become more important as 59 becomes 69 or 79, no matter what my appearance may betray.

And the realisation has given me one extra chance to be kind to others. When I meet people now after a gap, I look at their appearance more closely than I ever did before. I don’t lie, but if they seem to me not to have aged, I go out of my way to tell them so. I’ve started noticing some very gratified looks in return.

Our ZipCar Experiment

In March, our car died. It was a Volvo estate that we had bought in 2012 when we arrived in the US, already a veteran of nine years and 90,000 miles. After seven more years and 60,000 more miles, it gave up the ghost. Once the abundant smoke became blue rather than white, our friendly car shop quietly advised me to drive the old beast, very slowly and carefully, to collect $350 for the metal from a scrapyard in Brooklyn.

I had no complaints. Indeed, our local car shop, The Tire Place off Cooper Avenue, had been magnificent in managing the steady decline of our Volvo. For several years, works had been deferred with the instruction “just drive it”. They kept the show on the road without major bills, until the day of the blue smoke.

Once we were carless, we decided to embark on an experiment of living without a car for at least three months. In Manhattan, few have cars, because the subway is everywhere and parking is impossible. On Long Island, nobody could even conceive of a life without a car. Our part of Queens lies between the two extremes. The subway reaches us, so do trains and busses, but they are not convenient for every journey. Parking is a pain, but manageable. And nowadays there are Uber and there are ZipCars.

For the duration of the experiment, we decided that we would not change our lifestyle – if we would have gone somewhere before with the Volvo, we would find a way to go there rather than forego the experience.

In practice, we found a routine quite easily. We would typically take a ZipCar for a 24-hour period during the weekend. Midweek trips would either be by public transit or Uber. And for any need longer than 24 hours we hired a car.

This pattern was partly determined by economics, and contains the first thing I learned, or rather re-learned. In the US, nothing costs what it says it costs. This is so infuriating, and must be a disaster for anybody on a tight budget. If I had the power to change three things in the US, one of them would be to impose a law in which a quoted price has to be a true price, not a price before tax and after asterisks. One of the other two would be to fund education per pupil, so that needy kids got more rather than less (today most school funding is local via property taxes, so rich districts get more). I’ll think of my third wish another day.

So we learned that ZipCars were like everything else. They advertise a price of say $9 per hour (or $80 per day). But, lo and behold, upon logging in and choosing a time and place, the cheapest available car has suddenly gone up to say $12 per hour. So, you shrug your shoulders and press the button to book it, whereupon $12 has become $15.

That makes ZipCars quite expensive, only economic for single driving trips or whole days. Hence the hire car option, which, of course, is also not as cheap as advertised. And taking the hire car made me realise how excellent the rest of the ZipCar experience is, at least around Forest Hills. Each time I have hired a car from one of the airports, I have stood in line for over an hour while clerks perform checks that seem to me to be perfectly manageable by machines. By contrast, the ZipCar website is excellent, and I can pick the car up with no hassle from a place usually nearer to my apartment than I used to be able to find a parking space. Uber is equally wonderful operationally, so the combined ZipCar/Uber option would be tempting were it just a bit cheaper.

My other positive surprise from the experiment has been how much I’ve enjoyed travelling car-free. I’ve enjoyed plotting my way around strange parts of the borough and the city, taking busses and trains and subways to places I had never seen before. I’ve been on banker commuter lines and late-night party lines, and been the only white face on a crowded bus. Somehow I have been able to observe more because I’ve not been driving, though I’ve also had plenty of time to read.

I’ve learned that, despite its diversity, the city remains quite segregated. I also reminded myself how important mass transit is to many New Yorkers. Everyone should travel by bus from time to time. Busses have been reliable, but often very slow. Luckily, I am generally time rich so have been able to accept some long journeys, but for poorer citizens with unstable jobs, the time investment required to manage a life in the city must be exhausting.

The other experience that this experiment has given me is a feel for living with variable costs rather than fixed costs. Many of us have variable income too nowadays, including me from singing gigs. With a car, transport cost is heavy but is fixed, so you don’t really consider the marginal cost of any one journey. But if every journey is paid for directly, you really notice its cost. We have tried to live our lives as before, but you can’t help but notice if, for example, a trip to the volunteer home might cost $50 and four hours.

I am not sure if this is healthy or not. Probably it is. People on a budget who have made their costs variable can make choices in the moment and are less likely to be blindsided by large bills. But the risk is a sort of hibernation.

In any case, the experiment has now given us the data we need. We thought that the ZipCar and Uber route might work out well economically but be less convenient operationally, especially if services were unreliable. It has worked out the other way around. We have enjoyed the experience operationally, but found it more expensive than the alternatives.

So now I’ve been doing some more shopping, either for another used car like our old Volvo when we bought it, or for a lease on a new car. That has brought me into contact with another frustrating species of human, the car salesman. The funniest thing has been how many have directed me far, far away, assuming that I have a car. Why do they think that I am buying one? Oh, and they also all seem to think that I should buy a car on impulse the first time I enter their facility. Have they never heard of research?

Of course the lease deals quoted in TV adverts bear no relation to what actually has to be paid, after taxes, bank fees, registration and so on. No surprise there. So I have worked hard to work out the true cost, including insurance, which can be as much as the lease payments and could be a deciding factor – new lease cars cost more to insure than well-equipped older vehicles.

In the end, I think we will go for a lease anyway, because the car companies are so desperate to shift stock that they do make it quite affordable. One other joy from ZipCars has been to experience how cars have become safer over the last few years, with collision warnings and blind spot lights and so on. Even the most basic models feel safer and easier to drive than our old Volvo did, even before the constant need to check for smoke.

Still, I shall miss my long bus and train journeys. And I’ll also miss the fun of experimenting. Trying things out is often a good plan, since not only does it lead to better choices, it offers plenty of surprising lessons and new experiences. I have never felt more of a New Yorker, nor felt more in tune with typical fellow New Yorkers.

The Soul of Queens - Sariling Atin

Queens might be the most diverse place on earth. Among its 2.3 million souls, you can find enclaves of almost any culture you care to name. All of it is packed inside a densely populated melting pot. I love it. When we came to the US, I did not imagine living in a place with such vitality.

I have lived in diverse places before, but not to the same extent. There is also a trend that everywhere is becoming more diverse as the world gets smaller and humans migrate more readily. So, for example, I look back at the South London of the 1980’s or the Birmingham (UK) of the early 1990’s, and recall places with many active cultures, but somehow without the same depth.

You can think of it like merging colours in an oil painting. For most of the world, there is one dominant colour in the painting. As other colours emerge, they look like dots on a landscape, hardly spreading. So, for example, a small community of Chinese lived in the south coast English towns where I grew up. They were very localised and there was little mixing, let alone inter-marriage. One result was that the Chinese restaurants had a menu that looked Chinese only to white people, with items that any visitor from China would not recognise as Chinese at all. The only way to succeed as a minority in such a culture was to maintain tight links among a small network, while also adopting habits to fit the demands of the majority.

The Balti houses of Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook southern suburbs of Birmingham took diversity to the next level. A large population of South Asians from particular districts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh came to reside in these districts. There was enough critical mass for services to grow centred on the needs of those communities, rather than just white neighbours. Nonetheless, the communities were strengthened by creating a brand of restaurant that did cater to whites as well.

This may have been a positive turning point in race relations. There is always resentment and fear of people of difference. While a community is small, it has to be as invisible as possible to the majority, with many activities taking place in private homes. Then they grow and become obvious, like a large blob on a canvas, and are resented. One way to progress beyond that is to find a way to appeal to the majority. It was harder to resent the South Asians of Birmingham, while enjoying a Balti most Friday nights.

The Queens of 2019 takes this forward several more levels. The canvas appears more pixelated. First, there is no dominant colour, though if you look closely enough at any part of the canvas you will see pixels of different colours clustered together. Next, the number of different colours covers everything conceivable from humanity. Lastly, there is a recognisable blurring of the colours. Each culture has begun a process of fusion with its neighbours to create something marvellous and with broader appeal.

I can only hope that Queens becomes the template for how humanity lives in the future, because I can only see upsides. Of course, there are many hurdles to jump on this journey. Queens has the advantage of never really having a majority culture, and, like the rest of New York, being generally populated by people who have chosen to come and to make something of their lives, so maybe being more open and optimistic then most – agile rather than rooted in my characterisation. And don’t let me lead you to believe that there is no prejudice or resentment in Queens – sadly, you don't have to be a majoritarian to be a racist.

Still, despite its many tensions, living here renders much political discourse not just ugly but plain daft. Whether it is Trump’s remorseless drumbeat or Theresa May’s put down of people of no culture, most of us here have moved well beyond that.

An example of how Queens works can be found at one of my favourite shops, Sariling Atin on Queens Boulevard opposite Queens Centre mall. Sariling Atin is a Philippine establishment. Queens has a Philippine quarter in the same way as it has an everything else quarter, centred in Woodside but spreading as far as this establishment. Walk inside and you could be time-travelling to Manila.

The place is only about ten feet wide, which must help to keep the rent manageable, and the managers use every square foot to great effect to offer multiple services, primarily targeted at Filipinos. The counter by the door serves as a bank for remittances, with three suppliers available for sending money back home. That same counter has fresh produce like mangoes, and serves as a till for ambient, chilled and frozen goods stacked in the body of the shop. These goods are mainly brands used in Philippine cooking, as well as lots of rice. Near the entrance you can also find plenty of small ads for apartments, handymen, and so on.

Venture deeper in the shop and you arrive in a café of about eight tightly packed tables, overlooked by a TV continually playing Philippine shows, usually camp talent contests or karaoke. You queue at another counter at the far end to choose between many freshly prepared Philippine dishes there, which are also available for takeout.

So in this small space they manage to combine a bank, grocer, market, café, takeout and theatre, all with a Philippine flavour. It is marvellous, and I love visiting, even if I often have to hand my shopping list over to an assistant or even put my wife on the phone to them. Tagalog merges with English and Spanish, immigrants of multiple generations merge with immigrants of other cultures, and everybody is the better for it. I am often greeted by Philippine matrons brought up to be deferential to colonial rulers, ladies of a certain age who dream of marrying off their daughters and who love nothing more than to gossip with their friends about how poor the mangoes are this season or some church scandal.

This is Queens at its best, tightly packed, perhaps a bit shoddy, but efficient. No doubt the menu evolves over time and fusions develop from other cultures, and maybe some of these even make their way back to Manila. This is how humanity develops. Perhaps in the future, one of the people running Sariling Atin will pair off with someone from another background, and the fusion will accelerate.

I frequent Sariling Atin because of my connection to the Philippine culture. But if I crossed the boulevard and headed towards Elmhurst or Corona, I would find similar establishments, first for different parts of China or Korea, then for every country of Latin America. No doubt each of these is subtly different, in ways that I could only start to fathom if I had friends from particular cultures. But I can use any of them in blissful ignorance and feel welcome in all of them.

This is the joy of Queens. And, I hope and believe, it is the joy of humanity to come. Now I will settle back and enjoy some bistek or adobo.

Lessons from a DIY Wedding

At the beginning of this month my daughter was married to her long-time boyfriend. We were thrilled when they suggested holding the occasion at our villa in Portugal, because that made us feel good about buying the place in the first instance when Helen was just 14. Obviously the villa held happy memories for at least two family generations, and perhaps in time that can grow to three or even more. It was also striking how many of the 90 or so wedding guests had already holidayed before at the villa.

So about a year ago the gang of four of us – me, my wife, daughter and future son-in-law – set about planning a do-it-yourself wedding. We managed to pull it off rather well, and the four of us are closer now than we have ever been. But this was a tough major project to execute. We were completely exhausted upon returning to home. Over the last ten days I have slept very deeply as my body has tried to recover.

That, then, is the first lesson. Do-it-yourself weddings are very hard work. Make sure you plan to have a proper holiday after it is all completed, because you will need it. We had a few special complications to deal with, notably a venue a thousand miles away from where anybody lived permanently in a country where none of us are fluent in the local language. But actually we had many things on our side too, notably strong relationships, a realistic budget and a practical venue. I can only imagine the disaster that would have ensued without those three factors in place.

So that is the second lesson. Don’t contemplate a DIY wedding without those three solid ticks. Relationships are the most important of all. Weddings are pivotal moments in lives and we all have our stated goals, our unstated goals and our potential explosions. Only with strong initial relationships can these be navigated. We were able to talk through what was important to each of us and to work out how to work with each other as a strong team. We laid down goals and roles and more or less stuck to each. As part of this, we envisaged how we could use the space at the villa and what the maximum realistic capacity would be, and we came up with some sort of outline budget and how it could be divided between us.

Our main lesson on the budget was also a common one from other major projects. We were able to predict quite accurately most of the big items, especially after we had done some initial research and spoken to potential suppliers. What surprised us was the need for a large contingency budget. All projects have this feature. There are a myriad of items that are either individually small or wholly unpredictable, that tend to emerge during the few days of the execution phase, just when project management has to be most flexible and when the time is too short to find ways to save money. We anticipated this, but not to sufficient degree.

The next lesson is really project management 101, and we did a good job. We defined the critical and the long-lead items, and we made a visit to Portugal last October to get these in place. Apart from nailing down the goals, the budget, the maximum number of guests, key dates and so on, we also dealt with the mission critical items then. For us there were three important ones. We needed a caterer. We needed a supplier for a tent, tables, lights and so on. And we wanted to offer a couple of good hotel deals for our guests. The caterer would be a family friend and local restaurant owner. The hotels were easy, because the Algarve has many and we were asking for rooms outside peak season. The tent could have floored us, but luckily we found exactly one affordable quality supplier, Algarve Marquees. Thank goodness for Tom; the best alternative option would have been a complete disaster.

The next lesson is about how suppliers can fail. Here it helps to know a bit about the Algarve market. The area is a part of Portugal that used to be poor until tourism took a hold, and the local economy depends on the spending of wealthy second-home owners and retirees. The possible suppliers reflect this. Some Portuguese firms cater to the local market but lack depth. Many firms spy opportunities from ripping off rich absent foreigners. Some of these firms are run by foreigners themselves, a number of whom have landed in the Algarve having failed elsewhere. So caveat emptor! Of course this advice is magnified when planning a wedding, because all suppliers’ eyes light up with the potential for customers to lose financial discipline.

It is good to know the situation you face and what is likely to go wrong. We had to weed out the timewasters, the incompetent and the rip-off merchants. Luckily, in most categories that still left one or two qualified suppliers. We had to always key an eye on the budget and not let sentiment take over. Our florist tried to charge us 80 euros for confetti, so instead we just collected our own locally – luckily bougainvillea and lilac were moulting nicely. Lastly, one key supplier was clearly at the edge of his capacity to deliver, so he needed some nursing and some contingency work behind his back.

Then there are wedding planners. Weddings attract rip-offs, especially in the Algarve, and as it turned out we were lucky. We were sceptical but undecided about using a planner, until we met one, who turned out to be a comical advertisement against her own profession. I have never trusted businesses that greet me with a glass of champagne. This one started that way and went downhill fast, and as a result we made a clear decision (no planner for us) and became even more determined to do a better job than any planner could. Looking back, I think a planner would have only added to cost and also created extra interfaces to fail. But I do think there was scope for a more limited role. We could have taken on someone just for the two or three days culminating in the wedding, as a sort of co-ordinator. Their job would just be execution support, and the extra eyes and hands might have relieved us to enjoy the wedding a bit more.

That is one more lesson. Make sure you enjoy it. And that means taking the time at occasions during the day to soak up the pleasure and what it all means. I think the bride managed to succeed at this, but for the other three of us we have to rely on the warm afterglow. I know that for me my heart never slowed enough during the day itself, so much so that I managed to freeze during my song!

Which is one more lesson. Rehearse and make professional what is important to you, but accept spontaneity in everything else. Our ceremony was unrehearsed, and in my opinion all the better and more authentic for it. A reader could not work out whether to face the couple or the audience or how to use the microphone. The singer, that is I, forgot his lines and demonstrated in the same instant what the day meant for him. We had to retrieve the aforementioned DIY confetti from the living room when the time came. All of this only added to the fun and memories and also the sense of a family occasion.

One more common lesson from major projects is to close out well. Again, this is a particular risk for a wedding, when part of the point is to get thoroughly wasted. Some of us had to summon the energy to remember to gather up the unused bottles to get the sale-or-return money, and similar valuable but dull tasks.

Reading this, you might wonder if I am rather inhuman to have treated such an emotional affair as a major project. Well, I think I can assure you on that one with three answers. The first is that the major project angle is a deliberate choice for this blog. The second is that a project-type attitude, at least to a degree, is a critical success factor, because this really is a major project, full of risks. How many couples, and their parents, have I seen waste money they have not got on a lavish wedding, or, even worse, fallen out with each other as a result of something careless on a wedding day?

And my third answer is to relate that, major project attitude or not, delayed gratitude or not, this was as emotionally satisfying a moment as any I recall in my life. I am so proud of my little girl, of her wonderful new husband, of my wife and step-kids, and also of my girl’s mum. That has all involved a lot of tears. This whole event was such a blessing. And the last lesson is that, for all its stress, I believe that all the positive feelings are actually enhanced by our choice to do-it-ourselves and to make it ours. 

Brexit and Boris

The last time I wrote about Brexit, I predicted that there was no easy way through the mess. Parliament was not ready to vote for anything acceptable to the EU, and the Irish question was essentially insoluble. Neither a second referendum nor a general election would automatically clear things up. Things were going to have to get worse before there was any chance of getting better.

Well, for a change, I was right. But now one of the dominos required to drop to enable starting to reach a resolution has fallen. Theresa May has finally given up and resigned. She has been much maligned, and maybe for good reason: she was something of a lightweight, lacking the ability to lead either her party or her country in a decisive way and lacking the intellectual capacity to drive through her own approach. But in her defence it can be argued that her motives were always pretty pure: she tried to put the needs of the country above anything else. That quality is rare, and my guess is that we will have cause to miss it in what will now follow.

Because, during a night of fitful sleep last week, a clear idea of what will happen in the coming months came to me. It leads us out of the current jungle. But perhaps it leads us into an even more dangerous place.

Boris Johnson will become the leader of the conservatives and become prime minister. This feels inevitable. MP’s have to rank him in their top two, and then be the choice of party members. While many Tory MP’s hate Boris with a passion, I believe many will vote for him, as the leader most likely to lead the party out of the jungle. The Tories polled historically badly in the EU elections and could face oblivion if they don’t unite over Brexit. Johnson is the only candidate who might achieve that. MP’s, and especially Tory MP’s, place power above all else, so they will hold their noses and vote for him, at least in sufficient numbers for him to rank one or two. Then the party member vote will be a landslide.

What then? I think this is clear too. He will see that he is just as stuck as Theresa was and he will find a way out via an election. First, he will use his strong mandate to define a very clear and aggressive Brexit policy. Then he will invite MP’s and prospective parliamentary candidates to back this position or resign, asking pliant constituency parties to act as enforcers. Then he will manufacture a crisis with the EU – not difficult, because there is one already – and call an election, which he will win by a landslide.

His election platform is easy to define. He will promise rapid Brexit, with questionable promises about what can be negotiated, and exit with no deal as a backstop. He will use City money to position Corbyn as a Marxist, and succeed in out-debating Corbyn by exploiting the ambiguity in its own Brexit platform. He will campaign to reduce taxes, especially corporate ones, positioning the UK as one giant Jersey. He will use the dog whistle on immigration, stirred up by some manufactured story or other. There will be little else, but this will be more than enough.

The next steps are predictable too. Boris will gain some minor concessions from the EU, find a meaningless fudge for the Irish question, and then present a package that barely differs from Theresa to his newly compliant parliament, and Brexit will then take place. All these steps might require one more deferment but nobody will mind this since the process will at least be moving forward.

After this, predictions become a bit flakier. But I’ll keep going while I’m on a roll.

I can predict what Brexit itself might mean. I believe the people I’ve been listening to recently, whether wealthy expats in Portugal or BBC pundits or people trying to work flexibly, have all overstated Brexit’s negative impacts. Especially under Boris, I believe the rich have little to fear. Britain managed well enough without the EU before and Switzerland or Norway does now. The wealthy will find a way to get by, and indeed my Jersey analogy suggests all sorts of ways for the rich to get richer. While I hate all of this, these impacts are probably less damaging than years of unresolved crisis. Boris will settle the issue for a generation, and the economic impacts will be negative but not catastrophic.

There are clues around in other countries for other ways this might pan out. The comparison with Trump is telling, and no doubt Steve Bannon is quietly plotting behind Boris. Like Trump, Boris is a celebrity and will act like one, and the victims will be many, starting with truth. Complex issues will be deferred or simplified, scapegoats will be sought and foreigners and elites scorned. The BBC will be an early target. The new Tory parliament will be as supine as the US republicans. John Howard in Australia may be a closer match, so expect dumbing down, artificial scandals (stop the boats!), power to Murdoch and corporate greed.

Europe itself could react in either direction. Boris could possibly strengthen fellow populists in Europe, but it is as likely that remaining Europe will become more cohesive and liberal in response, just as Brexit itself has lessened demands in other member states to exit the EU.

It is also hard to predict what will happen to the left in British politics. Corbyn will probably resign, and there could be some splintering, involving growing Greens, revitalised liberals or even a new force with disgruntled Tories. That might enable Boris to keep power for a decade, despite the inevitable scandals and crises that he will generate. His own party will be rather united, and the Jersey strategy will keep the City and the papers happy. But in the longer run, just as in the US, the backlash will eventually come, as an educated generation will look to more enlightened leadership.

The impacts will be toughest on the Union and on the UK constitution and institutions. In the election, Scotland will remain an SNP bastion and more obviously pro-EU, so a second referendum with a different result is all too likely. Ireland is even harder, The DUP has wasted a historic opportunity, as it always does, and it is possible that Boris will concede a special arrangement for Northern Ireland with the customs border in the sea not between the parts of Ireland. That could portend a resumption of the troubles there, or maybe even a re-united Ireland. For sure Boris will think about this too little, too late and too selfishly, so the Irish will be sold down the river by the Brits one more time. The UK constitution, or its absence, is a flimsy thing, and it will be tested to the full in the Boris years.

From the beginning, the argument to remain in the EU for me was always less about trade and more about peace. Gordon Brown was one of the few who stood up and made this point before the referendum. I fear he and I may be proved right in the coming decade. The referendum will finally lead to Brexit, but also to Boris, to a breakup of the union and to growing risks of war, at least in Ireland and perhaps more widely, partly because efforts to reduce climate change impacts will be weaker.

I am always an optimist, and in the long term the world will emerge stronger, because the positive trends about the development of humanity are strongest. But I do think we need to buckle up for a tough ride in the coming decade, and Boris is one more reason why.  

Trusting Business

Business is one of areas that provokes binary responses. It seems that we either have to fall into the Donald Trump camp, where all bets are off and somehow it is considered a good thing if business is given as free a rein as possible, or the Guardian camp, where business is some sort of necessary evil, relentlessly pursuing that terrible sin of “short term profits”. As usual, the reality is more nuanced, and we would be better served by recognising that.

Recent headlines have given the Guardian tendency plenty of ammunition. The list of shame is horrifying. Start with Boeing, who seem to have persuaded the authorities that checking plans for safety could be left to them, but then allowed two planes to crash killing hundreds of people when risks were apparent. Volkswagen were caught falsifying emissions tests, and perhaps most of the industry were at it, conning all of us that their cars did less environmental damage than reality and warping the system in favour of diesel. The tobacco industry hid science for years, and the soft drinks industry stole their playbook and still largely get away with it, with Purdue Pharma are just the most egregious example of the same thing with drugs, leading to the opioid epidemic. Takata made faulty airbags for years before reluctantly owning up. Poor Bayer is left to pay the bill for the evils of Monsanto with Roundup. Luckily Theranos was exposed before damage was done to anyone who wasn’t a careless investor.

All of these caused actual early deaths. Financial crimes are lesser in that sense, but certainly harmed many lives. Wells Fargo carried on the proud tradition of financial firms for criminal misspelling to vulnerable people, while Barclays and others fiddled obscure indices with the sole intent of robbing humanity. Kraft Heinz is the most recent example of a firm suspending reality by falsifying data to boost stated results once an (inhuman) strategy had failed. GE has suffered for years for something similar. Goldman has its fingers all over a theft of large chunks of Malaysia’s meagre assets. Enron blazed a trail of greedy irresponsibility, taken up gleefully by Bernie Madoff.

Then there is abuse of workers and customers. Uber set a high bar in this regard. Walmart have fought unions for years, while wilfully paying women less than their value. Amazon gets away with what it can. Facebook takes our data and does not look after it well, enabling crooks like Cambridge Analytica and Vladimir Putin to take advantage. The NFL condemns its players to early deaths while college athletic businesses look on as kids are sexually abused.

I have probably forgotten some of the worst examples. But the list is enough for anybody to wonder how any business could ever deserve trust.

But the Guardian misses the main point in its hate for business. Business drives progress. Without it, the world would be like Russia, where business has been a corrupt state enterprise for 100 years. We would probably not have smartphones, MRI machines, mobile payments, abundant food choices, sneakers or even the internet, and we would all drive Ladas. These and other innovations have lifted billions from subsistence and will lead to continued progress for all humanity (even Russians). Business is good.

Business is also often in the forefront of social progress. Workplace safety first became a priority in the private sector. Technology firms often lead in creating better working conditions. Even Walmart helped to push up minimum wages.

One problem is that we tend to think of businesses as impersonal machines, or sometimes single-person fiefdoms. Businesses, like nations or families, are made from people, and people are complex. It was not that Enron was evil; rather it was a set of managers who showed flaws made mistakes under pressure.

I worked for Shell for 28 years. Many people think of Shell in terms of ruthless exploitation of African resources or of wilful damaging of the environment. It was not like that inside. In my experience, Shell people care more for those things than typical folk, even Guardian journalists.

True, we made mistakes. There were constant trade-offs, between hitting financial targets, serving customers, supporting internal teams and ethical considerations. Usually, ethical norms were not breached. Some situations were difficult. Making a return on investment meant working in places like Nigeria, and that required finding ways to navigate local corruption and business practices. We made mistakes, but we were not inhuman – usually we really did want to improve the lives of local residents there.

Another comparison can also help understand how to handle business, and that is sport. The driving force behind sports, for both entertainment and innovation and performance, is competition. Even in elite sports under extreme pressure, few cheat seriously – we don’t see opposing teams trying actively to break Messi’s leg, even if that would be the most effective strategy to win. So generally humanity wins out.

But cheating happens, and when it does it ruins the sport for everybody. So sports need clear and consistent rules, fairly applied. The rules require quality referees and governing bodies to be effective. These need to evolve, to use technology, and to balance the various priorities involved. If the sport is international, the governance has to be international as well.

Put all of this together and a common sense business policy emerges. It is noteworthy that on this there is a lot of common ground between The Economist and Elizabeth Warren, so there is probably some wisdom in there.

The key to a successful business policy is to foster competition. The implication is to reduce barriers to entry and exit and to minimise monopolies. This involves creativity, evolution, funding for referees and hard work. The EU is current best practice. The US is not. It is noteworthy that Peter Thiel and others have written that the only businesses worth investing in are those where competition is restricted.

Related is to recognise where markets do and don’t work. Deregulation is great when markets can work efficiently. But many markets have natural monopolies, or issues such as limited customer information, or priorities (such as environmental sustainability) that will not be adequately considered without regulation.

Health care is a great example. Markets should be used where they can be effective, such as in drug purchasing (including generics) or equipment supplies. But development of cures and much care provision cannot be effective markets, so regulation has to fill the gaps. The US health care system delivers double the costs and worse and worsening outcomes because of broken markets.

This also points to the biggest pitfall, which is that lobbyists become over-powerful. Just as the NFL has evolved more slowly than rugby because the owners have stifled innovation and competition (no relegation), lobbyists for business try to influence the referees. This is especially a scourge in the US, and I have few solutions to fix the problem. Certainly, don’t trust someone promising to drain the swamp but then expanding it as quickly as he can. And if the same person stifles innovation via nationalism, then that is an even better reason to beware.

The US has many advantages in business, including great scale, military investment and fantastic colleges. We can thank the US for a lot of the global progress achieved through business in the last fifty years. I think I’ll pace my bets on China for the next fifty though.

Business is good, we should never forget that, despite all the scandals. We should give business every chance to drive progress in our world. Our job is to foster competition and where markets are inefficient, fair regulation.