Percussion

One expects highbrow cultural events to be populated by the members of society who understand the protocol of such events. Perhaps it is testament to the growing popularity of the art (or more likely the pulling power of the principals) that many people appeared to be as unfamiliar with the protocol as I was. Fortunately I was attending the ballet with my wife, who is very familiar with the protocol that one only claps at the end of each act or after an exceptional passage* of dancing. However, a number of people seemed to think it was de rigueur to clap whenever Carlos Acosta entered or left the stage, or indeed did pretty much anything else.
I'm not talking about this to just to emphasise what a massive snob I am; the inability of many people to comprehend when it is appropriate to clap has been driven by a surge in clapping in general since the turn of the millennium. I first became fully aware of it whilst trying to watch the Arcade Fire at Glastonbury a number of years ago (2004?). I say 'trying' because the band were regularly drowned out by the people around me clapping, singing and wooing along. I'm fairly certain that most of them were entirely oblivious to the fact that they were doing it. When I mentioned this to a friend at the time, she dubbed it 'audience 2.0', an inevitable consequence of interactive culture and an evil to be endured.
My problem is that I don't see why I should have to endure it and I wouldn't have to if people were just a little more thoughtful about what they do. Reflex clapping is a symptomatic of a larger trend in society of thoughtless responses of all sorts. The results can have far reaching effects. Through lazy responses on social networks, you could easily become part of a Twitter storm that changes public policy in a way you were not anticipating. With great power comes great responsibility; with a tiny fraction of that power, we should at least exercise a modicum of responsibility.
I am not saying everything we do should be considered and premeditated, I am just saying next time we find ourselves doing something as a reflex (say, clapping at a funeral) maybe we should just take a moment to think 'why am I doing this?'
Maybe we should start with just clapping. Maybe every time you find yourself clapping, ask yourself 'why am I clapping?' Maybe we'll start questioning all our actions a little bit more.

* I'm not sure this is the correct term, but as I say, I'm new to all this.

Progress

So I joined Twitter. Not sure why now, maybe deep down I yearn to be pilloried in the popular press. Most likely I thought it was about time I engaged with some form of social media. Those who know me know I am not on Facebook, nor am I ever likely to be: I kind of missed the boat on that one. However, I realise that I exist in an age where many of my friends will not even email me to tell me of the birth of their child because they assume I will have become aware through the various social media. To be fair, before the invention of social media I probably would have heard by word of mouth anyway, so nothing has really changed for me. However, unless I am incredibly sociable, there will always be the nagging feeling that I am missing out on an exciting and socially active life, underpinned by receipt of the occasional email to 'my friends who are not on Facebook'.
This lack of internet socialisation betrays a greater trend: I fear that I am not a good user of the internet in general. I suffer terrible Google-blindness* and as a result tend to restrict my internet usage to reading emails, shopping research, solving arguments using Wikipedia and creating websites. You probably think that this last would require me to have a good understanding of the ways of the web, and I fear that it does, and that this is my one shortcoming in this area (a fairly important one I'll admit): I understand how it works better than how to use it. Again, when faced with the great white searchbox, I feel that there is a whole world out there that I am not privy to due to laziness or simplicity of approach. So I've joined Twitter in the hope that it will assist me in formulating a more sophisticated approach to the internet. If that doesn't work, at least I'll be able to find out what Katie Price had for breakfast.

*a condition whereby a user is rendered bereft of the memory of all the things they wanted to ask the internet the minute the Google homepage becomes visible.

Pretention

So I'm enjoying my new status as an east London resident properly now. I have a new favourite Sunday afternoon snack: Hereford Hop* with apple and ginger chutney on St John's brown sourdough. I'm sure there's a name for people like me, I'm just not sure I want to know what it is.

*not purchased in London

Protocol

For some reason I just snapped. I'm deeply intolerant of tailgating at the best of times, but I was in the middle of overtaking and this idiot drove up behind me flashing his lights and riding my bumper. I'm not proud of myself, but I braked hard and flipped him the vees. I didn't feel any better about it afterwards either, I felt like I'd confirmed a bunch of national stereotypes, whereas the other guy was just a bad driver. I could make all sorts of crass points about French temperament based on my observations of a single drive through freezing fog on the French autoroutes a few days after Christmas, but I would know them to be just that: crassly generalised observations. France probably has just as many crap drivers as the UK, so any inclination to ascribe a national character to some bad driving would say more about me than anything else. Conversely I couldn't get over the feeling that I had misrepresented my country and fed a growing national stereotype: the obstructive, self-interested Englishman. I wanted to catch the guy up and say, "I'm not another David Cameron, I genuinely was doing what I felt was necessary to make a point about road safety." But even as I write that, I realise that I would sound exactly like David Cameron: I chucked away a pile of international prestige to make a childish point that did nothing to advance my cause. Obviously my motoring indiscretion won't have as long lasting or far reaching effects, but it is perhaps a useful metaphor that I can milk for all it's worth. Of course it only works if you think that Cameron's recent willy waving exercise in Brussels was about doing what he thought was right, or just about making a childish point. The two are not mutually exclusive; like my brake-in-your-face gesture, Cameron could have been making a very dangerous, very childish point about something he believed in.
It's usually hard to know what any English politician really believes in when it comes to Europe, as they're constantly trying to ride the line of public hysteria whipped up by endless Eurosceptic rhetoric from our national press, whilst not totally alienating their European counterparts. Not so David Cameron, he doesn't worry about upsetting the Europeans, because when it comes to the crunch, they'll respect his integrity and listen to him. Sure thing Dave.
I should state my own position in all this: I am ideologically pro-European. Like Churchill, I believe that greater European integration is inherently a good thing. However, the EU as it exists now is a horribly distorted and dysfunctional institution that requires root and branch reform. How did it get this way? It's mostly our fault: if the UK had taken the sort of role in Europe that De Gaulle had feared we would, it would certainly not be the two horse race that it has become. It would probably be more efficient as well. I believe in a Europe with Britain at the centre of it, not sat in the slow lane making rude gestures as it passes is by.
In declaring myself pro-European, I realise that I am in the minority amongst my countrymen. That is not to say that the English (and it is the English - an independent Scotland would be a much more integrated part of the EU) are all avowed Eurosceptics, but we do have a funny relationship with Europe. It must stem at least partly from our island nation status (again something that's never bothered the Scots), which is bound up with all sorts of strange notions we got from having an empire (50+ years ago). If we could think beyond the concept of being in charge of other nations - which, like it or not, is still the English ideal of foreign relations - we might be able to see how a functioning relationship as a major player in Europe might work. Of course it wouldn't be plain sailing, there are always vested interests, and the French in particular would take exception to a stronger Anglo-Saxon influence, which in itself should be a good enough reason for most Englishmen to want to do it. In fact it is possible that one of the reasons the French are always pushing for greater integration is that they know it'll upset the English and ensure they don't want to get involved in any way other than a briefly obstructive one that leaves us in the slow lane fuming: it is the diplomatic equivalent of tailgating us and flashing their lights. It works every time, none more so than this time. Once again a British politician has returned from the continent banging on about principles and claiming to have got what they want whilst having achieved nothing concrete and given their opponents all the cards.
One of the problems is that it's hard to claim that we've got what we want when we don't know what we want. It appears that we're not keen to pull out into the fast lane and race ahead of the French. Stretching the metaphor as far as it will go, we want to lead all the other cars onto another road at the next junction. This is simply not going to happen: every other country sees greater integration as a natural part of their membership of the EU. The English on the other hand are unlikely to ever be happy with such an idea. This means we have to face the reality of our situation: we have probably blown our chance of having a Europe that is sufficiently to our tastes, so we are left with the option of either using our waning influence to modify the extremes of EU legislation, or withdraw altogether and be like Norway - the only European country to comply with all EU legislation because they need to.
Unfortunately if my little car journey is any indicator, the signs are not good. Shortly after my altercation with the Frenchman, I got on the train and came back to Britain.

Percentage

A few things I must remember to do:
1. Check how much profit my train operating company make.
2. Buy shares in my train operating company.
3. Check to see whether rail fares are included in the calculation of inflation indices.
4. Check this country's competition rules.
5. Marvel at the manner in which rules can be stretched for the right people.
6. Buy more shares in my train operating company.

I would be interested to know if anyone can find a price other than a rail fare that's increased by 7.8% this year.

Personal Security

Next year will see the start of two major legacies of New Labour social policy: NEST and compulsion. Taken together, they are intended to ensure that all employees have some form of pension provision over and above the increasingly paltry provisions of the state pension and associated means-tested benefits. The latter is simply the concept that all employers must enrol all employees in a pension scheme. It is then up to the employees to opt out of that scheme, which they are less likely to do. NEST is the vehicle created to be the scheme for employers who do not already have pension scheme provision: an ultra low cost Defined Contribution (DC) scheme, designed to be simple and cheap.
Both these things are laudable in their intention. In the scramble to condemn the baby-boomers for bankrupting the state and all the good private sector pension schemes, we tend to forget that a good number of them will spend their retirements in poverty, reliant on the means-tested state benefits that are the pensioner equivalent of the dole. If the wealthiest generation in history has these problems, imagine what it will be like for the rest of us. So the idea of pushing us all towards making our own pension provision, and making it cheaper and easier to do so is a good one. Such savings would be inherently ours, whilst still subject to the rules governing all pensions: chiefly that they cannot be drawn until age 55. Beyond that, they would operate in much the same way as any other DC pension or investment. This, of course, is where the problems start.
As the startling hubris of pension scheme actuaries - convinced that market returns of 9% a year would be an everlasting constant - led to the closure of ever more Final Salary pension schemes, the only significant alternative has been the DC pension scheme, which is effectively just an investment vehicle that has restrictions on when and how you can access the invested money. How and why this should have become the preferred form of pension provision is perhaps a discussion for another day, but it is worth noting that whilst invested, most of the money is held by an insurance company, and in order to avoid punitive tax charges, 75% of this money has to be paid to an insurance company at retirement. I guess that's just a coincidence.
Whatever the reasons for its popularity, the DC scheme is now the norm. Chances are, if you have any sort of pension provision, you're in a DC scheme. I wonder how often you check the performance of your chosen investments. I work in the financial services sector and I don't do it more than about once a year. I mean, that's not really a problem: I'm in this for the long run, so the last thing I want to do is start to panic about short term fluctuations in equities, bonds or even the price of gold. In the long term the trend is always upwards. Except of course that it isn't: at several points in the last twenty years index linked investments would have made a loss when adjusted for inflation if drawn at the 'wrong' time. Various schemes have various vehicles to avoid 'the wrong time' being when you happen to need or want retire, such as 'lifestyling' or offering funds run by a fund manager who is supposed to be able to get better than index linked returns on your investments, although such things invariably incur an additional annual charge that eats away at that extra interest. So, even though massive returns on investments are not forthcoming, the models used to predict how much money is needed to fund a comfortable retirement still assume year on year investment growth of 7% against a rate of inflation of 2.5%. Anyone who's paid even  scant attention to inflation over the last few years will know that it has only been at or below 2.5% for 7 of the last 20 years (based on September RPI values). This means that the statutory model for calculating potential retirement provision is about as realistic as the actuarial projections that allowed companies to take 'contribution holidays' from their final salary pension schemes back in the 80s and 90s, ensuring the death of those shemes. However, the government is reluctant to change the assumptions used in the model to more pessimistic (or realistic) ones for fear that it will engender a sense of futility in savers and cause people to give up on pension saving altogether rather than scare them into saving more. Of course in the case of NEST, the impetus to invest more is not there, as it is not going to be possible to do so. Why this should be so is unclear, as it would seem to remove another option to plan seriously for retirement. It seems that the hope is that once in one scheme, people will see the benefits of investing in their future and start another pension scheme with an insurer. No really.

Hmm, not bad...

Hmm, not so good...

Better than stuffing it under your mattress.

Sometimes better than stuffing it under your mattress.

NEST does not have managed funds because it is designed to cost the minimum for the members. The notion behind this is commendable in that no one should be compelled to pay for the profits of the fund managers, especially when there is no guarantee of a return. However, what it also means is that we all have to effectively become our own fund managers, suddenly realising in our lunchbreaks that the time to sell Pacific equities is now and giving NEST a call to move the lot to European bonds. This sounds very glamorous, but the reality is mundane, and if it is a scheme for people who weren't interested in pension provision in the first place, what is the likelihood that they will suddenly find the interest to get actively involved in making that pension better? I suppose it is possible that some people will, on finding their money is inaccessible take an interest in playing the markets: it's just possible that people will find out that it really doesn't take much to be a Master of the Universe.
Of course what is more likely is that people will be encouraged to invest in 'safer' funds: these traditionally being things like government bonds. Obviously in the case of many governments, such investments have recently become considerably more risky, although that does also mean the long term yields are up. This would be good for the people who have invested in them, but not so good for the tax payers saddled with the extra cost of paying off their country's debts.
So let's think about this a bit more in terms of NEST. This means that the government has set up a pension scheme in which you could invest in the government's debt via an insurance company. Why via an insurance company? Why doesn't NEST buy bonds direct? We have National Savings, why don't we just run NEST in a similar manner? Oh, I forgot,  someone has to make a profit out of your welfare: god forbid you invest in your general wellbeing without paying some superannuated waster for the privilege. Let us not forget, in the business of your future wellbeing just who is lobbying on your behalf. The people whose interest is the status quo that they generated must surely be interested in alternatives that might further benefit you and your government at the expense of their profit, mustn't they? What else could they possibly want?

Perspective

In this country it is not uncommon for people to judge a restaurant run by members of an ethnic minority by the number of people perceived to be from the same ethnic minority who are eating there. "That Chinese restaurant must be good," we say, "it's full of Chinese people."
Of course such a crass distinction has two fundamental problems. The first of these is our ability to accurately define someone's ethnic origin on sight, something that is actually very hard. I once took a friend to a Thai restaurant in Brighton shortly after he had spent a number of years living in Thailand. He greeted the waitress and asked how she was in what I assumed to be pretty good Thai, but the waitress just looked at him baffled for a moment, before explaining that she was Japanese and didn't speak a word of Thai.
The second problem is the idea that all the people of a certain race are expert in all food associated with that race. This is patently nonsense: firstly it assumes a uniformity of cuisine across vast diaspora, and secondly it assumes that all the people of those diaspora to be gourmandes. In fact it assumes all people of another ethnic background to have some sort or innate 'food knowledge', which is dangerously close to the patronising notions of the 'authenticity' of ethnic minorities, itself an ugly hangover from the Enlightenment.
So these prejudices exist, they pervade our attitudes and society without us even knowing it, but do they have negative effect simply because they have negative associations, or am I just making an excessively PC point about something that is simply a result of ethnic diversity and lazy stereotyping? Because any 'other' is ultimately unknowable, are we to be forgiven for assigning group attributes to those less familiar (especially when those attributes themselves are not negative)? I really don't know.
Perhaps it is more about approach: if I don't intend to apply lazy stereotypes based on race, am I to be forgiven when I occasionally do due to tiredness or thoughtlessness? Where do we draw the line? Such cutting of slack very quickly leads to 'casual' racism, usually when people think any potentially injured party cannot hear. Outwardly tolerant people can  suddenly reveal hidden intolerance through racist jokes when in private and 'amongst friends' (i.e. people apparently of the same racial background). The argument in defence of such behaviour is that it's harmless fun and no one is hurt, but it cannot be harmless, no repressed opinion can. The very fact that it only occurs in private makes it potentially even more problematic than overt racism, as the sense is that it is only society that is preventing the covert racist from revealing their true feelings. In such cases, the 'save me from what I want' aspect is about avoiding conflict: I am guilty of letting these comments slip in the past in favour of a 'quiet' life, in order not to upset the 'flow' of a social event. My intention is to challenge such comments in future, whatever the situation or possible outcome.
This brings me back to my original observation though: if someone says we should go into a restaurant because it's full of people from the associated diaspora, do I point out the potential negative associations in such a comment? Maybe I will. Maybe just to revisit this whole argument and see if I get any further.