So, tonight I was signed up to a talk at the Frontline Club - first in an age. And were I not on gardening leave, having quit my job yesterday, I wouldn't have made it - but as it is, I'm barred from actually working during this time. Or going to the Guildford office. Which makes no practical sense - I was hardly going to pick up any sensitive information in the remaining month, and I'm effectively dead to them, which is going to make things a lot harder for the transition. But hey, their loss! I'm not complaining.
Now, late this afternoon, just as I was getting ready to leave, the electricity meter ran out. Oh goodee. So that was a trek to get it topped up, and then I had shopping to do, and my mother to Skype - so I was actually a little bit rushed. The route from here basically involved getting to Victoria - fast by train, slow and cheap by bus. Not supposed to be that much slower by bus, but at that time of the evening I knew traffic would be a nightmare. So train it was, then not long to wait for the 36 to St. Mary's Hospital, and it was just ahead, across the road.
Lots of stairs to reception, where she checked our names off the list. Lots more stairs to the venue for the talk, and it was good to be back there:
Lots of Vietnam photos dotted around, but I've always been struck by this particular one by Don McCullin. I was shortly joined by someone I knew, and we chatted until people started arriving - we'd been sternly warned to be there half an hour early to get a seat, but the place had only been half full when I arrived, at about 20 to. When people started needing seats, I ended up moving right in to the wall, where I was practically sat right on top of a radiator that I was sure was going to set my leg on fire. Hey-ho.
The talk was the second in the Kleptoscope series about London's Dirty Money, and the speakers included Ala'a Shehabi of Bahrain Watch, Ben Cowdock of Transparency International UK, and Richard Brooks of Private Eye. As ever in this venue, all were fascinating, as they led us through the murky world of shady foreign characters' misappropriation of funds. Apparently, this series was built on the back of a Kleptocracy tour, where they would take people around London in a bus, stopping outside mansions bought with foreign dirty money..
Ala'a told us the engrossing story of how the beautiful beaches of Bahrain, from which her grandparents earned their living as pearl fishers, have all but disappeared, appropriated by the royal family, who have built luxury apartments and hotels on them, reclaiming the sea. "Turning sand into gold", as she put it. Ben led us through the stream of foreign despots who have bought £10-million houses in London, focussing specifically on Syria (Assad and his cousins), Libya (the Gaddafis) and Egypt (Mubarak). All enthusiastically welcomed by Boris Johnson, of course, with his vision of a spaceship full of foreign gold bullion, descending on London. And finally, Richard laid it all out for us, in a fascinating interactive map showing all the foreign-owned properties - available on the Private Eye website. Zooming in on London was amazing, as the purple that denoted a foreign-purchased property dominated the whole map - although, as I pointed out to my companion, there wasn't much purple around the south-east.. plenty of expansion potential! Just a pity that their internet connection was so dicey, causing a considerable delay in pages loading.
And that was as much as I got, I'm afraid. I do kind of get the feeling I just wasn't meant to go, tonight - all evening I'd been battling one of those tummy upsets that just kept getting worse. I knew I was in trouble when I got extremely nauseous, suddenly - although I managed to hold it in. Still, while we were waiting for the Private Eye pages to load, I decided enough was enough, and this was when I made my disruptive move - I'd seen toilets on my way in, and I was making a beeline for them. Unfortunately, with the chairs crammed in as they were, this was not a discreet exit. :-)
I flew to the toilets, when I finally got out. Had a very uncomfortable time in there, then literally dragged myself to the bus stop, whimpering; I had wondered at the wisdom of taking the bus, nauseous as I was, but Google Maps said it was quicker, which swung the decision. I was lucky that one arrived at the stop just as I did, and made sure to sit myself by the door, where I'd get a draught. Ooh, that bus journey was fun, holding it in.. funnily enough, the best distraction I had was the lady beside me, who was confused about her directions - by the time she decided just to get off at the next stop, I'd got a second wind. Still, every moment of the journey home was agony, and it was a relief to collapse on my bed, finally. But I am glad I went - and when the podcast eventually goes up, I can catch what I missed..
Tomorrow, I'm back with the Crick Crack Club, in the Arthouse Crouch End, for one I missed before - Little Red Riding Hood & Other Lost Girls, as told by Nell Phoenix. And yes, I do have the confirmation email for this one, unlike the one I thought I'd booked for last Sunday week!
The most interesting thing in Meetup for tonight was this discussion in the Frontline Club. The London European Club was bringing a group, meeting beforehand in the Fountains Abbey pub across the road. So I booked with the Frontline Club, as instructed - I know from before that they book out. Which they did, at least as early as yesterday.
I decided that the only practical thing was to leave straight from the office, so just before 6 I headed off for the Tube. I was lucky - one headed to Paddington arrived pretty soon, and four stops later I was there. On the way, I started to read the free paper, copies of which were strewn about - but decided against bringing it with me, as it'd be too awkward.
Paddington was where the fun started. I'm not that familiar with this station, and didn't realise that the two exits from the platform go to completely different exits from the Underground station. I should have taken the one for Praed Street, but instead took the first - for the mainline station. Which is fine - except that when I came up into the station, I discovered it's being renovated, and the signage is woeful! Turns out - when you get off the escalator, take a right, but NOT through the doors. They look like exit doors, and normally they are - but that exit is now closed. Instead, carry on until you finally see an exit sign. This will bring you out on Praed Street.
When I finally got out, thanks to Streetview I knew to go left. The pub is on the next corner - but was completely rammed! There were even people sitting at the outside tables, in the drizzle. I nipped inside and had a quick look around - I don't know whether there's an upstairs, but the ground floor is pretty small, and it didn't take me long to see there was no LEC sign on any of the tables, as promised. So I said feck that, and crossed straight to the club - it was open by now.
There's a reception desk at the top of the first flight of stairs, where they checked my name off the list, and instructed me to go up to the next floor - two more flights. The room where talks are held is pretty small, with bare brick walls and folding chairs in rows. A podium at the far end is where the speakers sit, and cameras are positioned at both ends of the room - the talks are streamed live, as we were told, and carried on their YouTube channel. I took a seat in the middle and messaged the group to explain what I'd done. I got a message back, to say they'd taken - eh - the row in front of me! Yes, I did wonder when a group of about half a dozen people came in.. anyway, I didn't know any of them, and didn't introduce myself.
So, the panel comprised an interviewer and four panellists - a journalist who's reported on Bosnia, and written a book about it: two Bosnians who left as refugees, made their home here, and are now involved in working to integrate the youth of the different societies there: and Paddy Ashdown, who was involved in the writing of the Dayton Agreement.
The panellists may have had their disagreements onstage, but were all saying much the same thing - in essence, the Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian war, worked brilliantly for 10 years. But then the international community said ok, we're done, and left Bosnia to its own devices, standing by as the agreement was unravelled. The only lady onstage described how she watched tv footage of Syrian refugees - who had more sense than to flee to Bosnia. As she watched them crossing the muddy river, she said, it seemed to her that Bosnia was being trampled like that mud.
The panellists painted a gloomy picture of a country in the process of disintegration. They made the point that there are politicians that thrive on conflict, and derive their power base from the fear that one group feels for another. So Bosnia is reverting to mono-ethnic societal groups, everyone forced to declare an ethnicity: when running for public office, for instance. A lawyer spoke from the back during question time, who had represented a Jewish electoral candidate in Bosnia who objected to having to declare himself as Jewish on the ballot. The European Court of Human Rights has, in fact, declared the Bosnian constitution illegal - the only time such a thing has ever happened. Not that anyone's doing anything about it. (Well, when has the international community ever done anything for Bosnia? As Paddy Ashdown pointed out, they can't expect anything from outside, but must depend on themselves.)
The general consensus was that Bosnian politicians are exploiting deep-seated societal divisions for their own ends. And the panellists in general were pessimistic, predicting the breakup of the country. Paddy Ashdown was brilliant - entertaining and informed; I got the impression that here was a man that knew what he was talking about. They did end on a positive note, expressing hope in the youth of the country.
Afterwards, I was starving, so cried off the group's trip to the pub - which was just as full as before, when I passed, so I doubt that even happened! I fancied a Chinese, and had passed one on the way - the Peking-Seoul Chinese/Korean restaurant. There's an adjoining café, obviously for daytime trade, where I was put as I was alone. I ordered prawn crackers - which were ok, but not great - and lemon chicken with fried rice. The rice was fine - the coating on the chicken was beautifully crispy, but the sauce was just a bit too lemony. Still, I enjoyed my meal. On the way back, I pondered the complication of the Tube station - I think I'd have had to head towards the Bakerloo Line to get out the way I'd wanted to!
Well, tomorrow I'm back with Meetup - the Kensington Classical Music group are headed to a concert by Kamilya Jubran, at the Mosaic Rooms Gallery. I wasn't familiar with her work, but checked her out on YouTube and she sounded ok. Again, I had to get a ticket from the venue - no booking fee, gratifyingly. Whether it was an IE problem I don't know, however, but when I was trying to buy one, the form behaved in the oddest way. And a blasted popup appears on every page of the site, asking you to join their mailing list. Even if you already have!! Be warned.
Then on Friday, I'm off to Glasgow. Because that's where U2 are playing next, and I'm seeing them there on Friday and Saturday.. and thankfully, my hotel is right beside the venue. So I have a few things to organise tomorrow.. like checking in for my outbound flight, printing confirmations and concert tickets, working out directions.. now, this is a weekend I'm supposed to be in Ireland, so I'm flying to Shannon on Sunday and staying until Tuesday. A displaced weekend, you might say. No direct flights any more between Scotland and Shannon though - I'm having to fly to Dublin and make my way down. Which is another thing I have to work out!
Tonight saw me finally go to the Frontline Club, a place I've thought about going to - or meant to go to - a couple of times, but never before made it. Meetup's London European Club was organising a trip to the Crisis in the Mediterranean talk there, and had a discount code. And so I finally booked.
Mind you, there was a last-minute rush at work, which saw me leave straight from the office, even though it's not that far. Tube to Paddington and a short walk. However, I had a 10-minute wait at Earl's Court - five minutes on the platform waiting for the train and five minutes on the train waiting for the green signal - which meant I was rushing. Then I got all confused upon leaving the station - I'd left by a different exit from the one I'd seen on Streetview, and had no idea which way to go! I finally recognised a scene, headed off in the right direction, and arrived in the nick of time.
They have a restaurant at ground level, but you want the room upstairs. Entry is by a simple black door to the side - there's a desk at the first landing, and the venue is up another flight of stairs. It's quite a small room, filled with folding chairs - I took one at the back. Despite the time, it was another while before we started, with five people occupying chairs on the dais. We were asked to turn our phones off or to silent, and informed that the talk was being broadcast live and recorded.
The subject, of course, was the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe, often under dangerous conditions. They called it a debate - but it wasn't, actually: not with no dissenting voices. This was a panel discussion. Not that I'm complaining - I agreed with their views, and didn't fancy the slagging match that would doubtless have ensued, had there been opposing voices present.
There were a lot of journalists present - I think this is a journalists' club anyway. One of the panellists is the foreign correspondent for the Guardian, based in Cairo, who was first to speak, and made the first of many interesting points of the evening. At the other end was an Irish lawyer, who was a rather annoying speaker - not because of what she had to say, but because her voice, not that loud to begin with, kept trailing off, and although the speakers on the dais were all miced, her mic was positioned too far away from her mouth, and it was often difficult to distinguish what she was saying.
Several people were taking notes - I almost wish I had. I found out a number of things this evening:
- Most refugees are Eritrean. Apparently, military service in Eritrea is both compulsory and lifelong, and many are persecuted and flee.
- It's unpoliceable at source. People buy boats to cross in for cash from fishermen. That's impossible to police, even if the local police weren't taking backhanders. Plus, they're under-resourced.
- As for the danger, they'd rather die than deal with their current situation. The Guardian correspondent has a Syrian friend who tried to get on a boat that subsequently sank, and is still trying. When asked why, he replied, "If I die, just I die. But if I live, I give my children a future they couldn't otherwise have."
- If there were the will to deal with refugees, the UNHCR has excellent resettlement programmes that could be utilised. There just isn't the political will, with some governments (including the UK).
- Merchant vessels are great at rescuing refugees. Unfortunately, the smugglers know this, and are in the habit of throwing pregnant women, and children, into the water, knowing that the merchant vessels will pick them up. Norway has gone so far as to extend training to its merchant seamen, bringing in NGO representatives to instruct them on how refugees are likely to react, how they should be treated. When a similar plan was mooted to the British Home Office, they just laughed.
- Sweden and Germany are the most hospitable to refugees, taking in more than anyone else. There are more Iraqi refugees in Malmo than in all of the UK.
- The UK government has been chatting with the Australian government, famous for their harsh treatment of "boat people".
And then there was the stuff they didn't have to tell me - like the reactionary attitude of the majority of the British media. I shop for my lunch in Tesco every weekday, and I pass the newspaper stand and have a glance at the headlines. Over the last while, I've found it quite disturbing to read those headlines. Full of vehement spite, I would call them. Ranting about the EU, ranting about foreigners.. it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Very different from what one of the panellists tonight had to say about the wonderful possibilities at grassroots level, and what great resettlement programmes are actually in place in the UK - if you can only get past the border.. he had a lovely story to tell, about some people in Edinburgh who asked how they could get permission to house Syrian refugees; they felt sorry for them. Well, no bother at all, they were told - and now Edinburgh is home to a small Syrian community. :-) There's hope yet - don't believe everything you read in the papers!
The most thought-provoking evening I've had in years. Oh, and you can catch the whole thing on YouTube! as with all their talks, it seems. Afterwards, there were free drinks, and somewhere was a Meetup group I could've joined. But I was hungry, and headed away. I'd passed a KFC on the way, and hadn't eaten there in an age, so decided to try it. They were very busy, but trying their best, and I was soon fed. I must give them credit for keeping it clean, despite their busyness at the counter. They did forget to give me a fork for my beans, and I couldn't see any myself, so just left them - frankly, I was getting enough salt from the rest of the meal anyway. It really has been ages since I ate at KFC, and I'm not used to it anymore. The chicken itself was nice, but I didn't finish the rest - it felt positively unhealthy.
Anyway, I managed to walk off a considerable quantity of it, just heading back into the station - down steps, up steps, down steps - it was several minutes before I wound my way to the platform. Tomorrow, I'm back to Ireland for the weekend, and the day after, we're headed to the Limetree for a production of Rigoletto.
