Monday, September 17, 2007
Londonium Exodus
A recent report has shown quite how many Londoners are leaving the city. The Office for National Statistics says that between June 2005 and June 2006, about 243,700 Londoners went to live in other parts of Britain. Some 28 of London’s 33 boroughs suffered a net loss of residents to the shires. The cost of housing is cited as the main reason, either because younger Londoners cannot afford to buy in the capital, or because property-owners have decided that this is a good time to sell. However, immigration from abroad combined with births to ensure the city's population grew, to slightly over 7.5m.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
The (Neo) Cons
The last book I have finished reading is called "After the Neocons - America at the Crossroads" by Francis Fukuyama, the guy who wrote "The End of History". Published by Profile Books in paperback, it has just 226 pages so it's a quick read.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
A Frank Hawk
A couple of books I grabbed last days:
This is a classic I haven't read yet. The young girl hidden from the Nazis in an Amsterdam warehouse... I think she spent, with all her family, two years just to be captured and die in a concentration camp.
The diary of a youn girl
By Anne Frank
Published by Puffin
427 pages.
I read this book almost 20 years ago when at university. Now I am reading it again, in paperback. I remember being totally hooked and amazed with Hawking's prose plus the weird feeling about this titanic mind in such a fragile body. I think he is the Newton of 21st century... but maybe someone can say this is a too high title.
A brief History of Time
From the Big Bang to Black Holes
By Stephen Hawking
Introduction By Carl Sagan
Published by Bantam Books
220 pages
This is a classic I haven't read yet. The young girl hidden from the Nazis in an Amsterdam warehouse... I think she spent, with all her family, two years just to be captured and die in a concentration camp.
The diary of a youn girl
By Anne Frank
Published by Puffin
427 pages.
I read this book almost 20 years ago when at university. Now I am reading it again, in paperback. I remember being totally hooked and amazed with Hawking's prose plus the weird feeling about this titanic mind in such a fragile body. I think he is the Newton of 21st century... but maybe someone can say this is a too high title.
A brief History of Time
From the Big Bang to Black Holes
By Stephen Hawking
Introduction By Carl Sagan
Published by Bantam Books
220 pages
An African Hero
Mo Ibrahim helped to bring mobile phones to Africa. Now he has bigger plans
IN 1998, as the telecoms boom was under way, Mo Ibrahim was amazed that big companies were rushing into the mobile-phone business around the world, yet not in Africa. There they saw only problems: poverty, unrest and corruption. Mr Ibrahim, a veteran of the telecoms industry in Britain and Sudan, was at the time running a consultancy he had founded in London. Amid the cigar smoke and snifters that followed its directors' dinners, an idea formed. Might it be possible to set up a pan-African mobile operator—and to do so without paying bribes?
This was the genesis of Celtel, which is now one of Africa's largest mobile operators, with some 20m subscribers in 15 countries.When Mr Ibrahim sold Celtel in 2005 to MTC, a Kuwaiti operator, for $3.4 billion, it demonstrated that the continent was open for business. Rather than charity, he insists, “the way forward for Africa is investment.”
Building businesses in Africa is important to Mr Ibrahim, who had to leave the continent as a young man in order to pursue his career. Born in Sudan and raised and educated in Egypt, he started off as an engineer at Sudan's national phone company. After further study in Britain he went on to become technical director at Cellnet, the wireless arm of BT, Britain's biggest telecoms operator. (Cellnet was subsequently sold, renamed O2 and is now owned by Telefónica of Spain.) He left in 1989 to set up an engineering consultancy that designed mobile networks, and sold the firm for just over $900m to Marconi in 2000.
These experiences paved the way for Celtel's emergence. The consultancy enabled Mr Ibrahim to peer into the business models of dozens of mobile operators, from which he concluded that an African operator would work. His time at BT was also informative: big companies, he says, teach a fellow everything he ought not to do in order to be successful. “Later on in life I was not worried about taking on the big guys, because you know they are not efficient,” he says. And Mr Ibrahim's previous success meant that the motivation behind Celtel's establishment was not solely commercial. He and his co-founders had already made their fortunes and regarded Celtel as a political and intellectual test. That is why they happily ventured into risky African markets and refused to pay bribes.
Now that mobile telephony is booming in Africa, Mr Ibrahim has other plans. Not for him the typical rush into private equity. Instead he set up a foundation last year with the novel (and, say critics, utopian) mission of promoting good governance in Africa. It plans to award an annual prize of $5m to retired African leaders who rule well and then stand down, rather than trying to cling to power. The foundation is working with Harvard University to establish a scoring system with which to assess potential candidates. The prize committee is chaired by Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations. The first award will be presented in October, though the prize will be presented only in years when a worthy winner can be found. By that point Mr Ibrahim plans to have stepped down as the chairman of Celtel to avoid any possible conflict of interest.
Meanwhile Mr Ibrahim has also put up $150m to establish a fund to invest in African businesses. From its newly opened offices in London, the Africa Enterprise Fund will seek out promising companies in financial services, consumer goods, energy and agricultural processing. The aim is to focus on established businesses that need cash and experienced management to grow, and the average investment is expected to be around $20m. Only companies that can expand their operations regionally or throughout Africa will be considered. Mr Ibrahim has appointed Tsega Gebreyes, Celtel's former strategy chief, to help run the fund. This is because the fund's approach is to apply the Celtel formula in other fields: identify inefficiencies, consolidate fragmented operations, go pan-continental and develop a respected brand. The goal is scale. A large company that operates in several African markets can attract a higher calibre of managers than a gaggle of local ones, and can have more political clout when demands for bribes crop up.
Politics, philosophy and economics
Though there are no direct links between the foundation and the fund, the two are symbiotic. Business and investment in Africa can succeed only if there is good governance, which is what the foundation is intended to promote. And economic development is necessary in turn to give people a stake in improving the political process. The foundation's $5m prize is a pittance, it is true, when compared with the spoils that can be extracted by staying in power. But the initiative may not be totally futile: given the impotence of Africa's intergovernmental bodies it will do no harm at all to produce an annual public ranking of African governance. And the foundation will offer a carrot where other non-governmental organisations carry sticks.
The investment fund is also tiny when set against the magnitude of Africa's problems. But as Celtel shows, some businesses can have a powerful ripple effect, promoting economic activity and generating new investment. Celtel employs around 8,000 people directly, for example, but it and other mobile operators indirectly provide jobs to around 170,000 people in Africa who resell prepaid airtime. More broadly, mobile phones also promote entrepreneurship and economic activity by widening access to markets and making up for poor or non-existent transport infrastructure. Similar ripple effects ought to be possible in other fields such as financial services and energy.
Thirty years ago Mr Ibrahim had to leave Africa for Europe in search of education and professional success. He hopes that fostering indigenous African companies will help ensure that tomorrow's engineers and entrepreneurs can find their opportunities closer to home.
IN 1998, as the telecoms boom was under way, Mo Ibrahim was amazed that big companies were rushing into the mobile-phone business around the world, yet not in Africa. There they saw only problems: poverty, unrest and corruption. Mr Ibrahim, a veteran of the telecoms industry in Britain and Sudan, was at the time running a consultancy he had founded in London. Amid the cigar smoke and snifters that followed its directors' dinners, an idea formed. Might it be possible to set up a pan-African mobile operator—and to do so without paying bribes?
This was the genesis of Celtel, which is now one of Africa's largest mobile operators, with some 20m subscribers in 15 countries.When Mr Ibrahim sold Celtel in 2005 to MTC, a Kuwaiti operator, for $3.4 billion, it demonstrated that the continent was open for business. Rather than charity, he insists, “the way forward for Africa is investment.”
Building businesses in Africa is important to Mr Ibrahim, who had to leave the continent as a young man in order to pursue his career. Born in Sudan and raised and educated in Egypt, he started off as an engineer at Sudan's national phone company. After further study in Britain he went on to become technical director at Cellnet, the wireless arm of BT, Britain's biggest telecoms operator. (Cellnet was subsequently sold, renamed O2 and is now owned by Telefónica of Spain.) He left in 1989 to set up an engineering consultancy that designed mobile networks, and sold the firm for just over $900m to Marconi in 2000.
These experiences paved the way for Celtel's emergence. The consultancy enabled Mr Ibrahim to peer into the business models of dozens of mobile operators, from which he concluded that an African operator would work. His time at BT was also informative: big companies, he says, teach a fellow everything he ought not to do in order to be successful. “Later on in life I was not worried about taking on the big guys, because you know they are not efficient,” he says. And Mr Ibrahim's previous success meant that the motivation behind Celtel's establishment was not solely commercial. He and his co-founders had already made their fortunes and regarded Celtel as a political and intellectual test. That is why they happily ventured into risky African markets and refused to pay bribes.
Now that mobile telephony is booming in Africa, Mr Ibrahim has other plans. Not for him the typical rush into private equity. Instead he set up a foundation last year with the novel (and, say critics, utopian) mission of promoting good governance in Africa. It plans to award an annual prize of $5m to retired African leaders who rule well and then stand down, rather than trying to cling to power. The foundation is working with Harvard University to establish a scoring system with which to assess potential candidates. The prize committee is chaired by Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations. The first award will be presented in October, though the prize will be presented only in years when a worthy winner can be found. By that point Mr Ibrahim plans to have stepped down as the chairman of Celtel to avoid any possible conflict of interest.
Meanwhile Mr Ibrahim has also put up $150m to establish a fund to invest in African businesses. From its newly opened offices in London, the Africa Enterprise Fund will seek out promising companies in financial services, consumer goods, energy and agricultural processing. The aim is to focus on established businesses that need cash and experienced management to grow, and the average investment is expected to be around $20m. Only companies that can expand their operations regionally or throughout Africa will be considered. Mr Ibrahim has appointed Tsega Gebreyes, Celtel's former strategy chief, to help run the fund. This is because the fund's approach is to apply the Celtel formula in other fields: identify inefficiencies, consolidate fragmented operations, go pan-continental and develop a respected brand. The goal is scale. A large company that operates in several African markets can attract a higher calibre of managers than a gaggle of local ones, and can have more political clout when demands for bribes crop up.
Politics, philosophy and economics
Though there are no direct links between the foundation and the fund, the two are symbiotic. Business and investment in Africa can succeed only if there is good governance, which is what the foundation is intended to promote. And economic development is necessary in turn to give people a stake in improving the political process. The foundation's $5m prize is a pittance, it is true, when compared with the spoils that can be extracted by staying in power. But the initiative may not be totally futile: given the impotence of Africa's intergovernmental bodies it will do no harm at all to produce an annual public ranking of African governance. And the foundation will offer a carrot where other non-governmental organisations carry sticks.
The investment fund is also tiny when set against the magnitude of Africa's problems. But as Celtel shows, some businesses can have a powerful ripple effect, promoting economic activity and generating new investment. Celtel employs around 8,000 people directly, for example, but it and other mobile operators indirectly provide jobs to around 170,000 people in Africa who resell prepaid airtime. More broadly, mobile phones also promote entrepreneurship and economic activity by widening access to markets and making up for poor or non-existent transport infrastructure. Similar ripple effects ought to be possible in other fields such as financial services and energy.
Thirty years ago Mr Ibrahim had to leave Africa for Europe in search of education and professional success. He hopes that fostering indigenous African companies will help ensure that tomorrow's engineers and entrepreneurs can find their opportunities closer to home.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
In Fact...
- ...there are more British troops in Ireland than in Iraq.
- ...rents in central Manchester are 40% higher than in central Manhattan.
- ...if all Lego in the world were divided up evenly, we would get 30 pieces each.
- ...Lauren Bacall and Shimon Peres are first cousins.
- ...there are half a million semi-automatic machine guns in Swiss homes.
- ...Australia emits 30% more greenhouse gases per capita than the United States.
- ...the porcentage of Nigerians living on less than a dollar a day has risen from 32% in 1985 to 71% today.
- ...Mao Zedong had a hairdresser called Big Beard Wang.
- ...Israelis own 10% of the private land on the moon.
- ...of India's 1.1bn population, only 35m pay income tax.
- ...Europe's merchant ships emit around a third more carbon than aircraft do.
- ...when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, his army used more horses in total, and more per soldier, than did Napoleon's over 100 years earlier.
- ...rents in central Manchester are 40% higher than in central Manhattan.
- ...if all Lego in the world were divided up evenly, we would get 30 pieces each.
- ...Lauren Bacall and Shimon Peres are first cousins.
- ...there are half a million semi-automatic machine guns in Swiss homes.
- ...Australia emits 30% more greenhouse gases per capita than the United States.
- ...the porcentage of Nigerians living on less than a dollar a day has risen from 32% in 1985 to 71% today.
- ...Mao Zedong had a hairdresser called Big Beard Wang.
- ...Israelis own 10% of the private land on the moon.
- ...of India's 1.1bn population, only 35m pay income tax.
- ...Europe's merchant ships emit around a third more carbon than aircraft do.
- ...when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, his army used more horses in total, and more per soldier, than did Napoleon's over 100 years earlier.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Hot, Cold, Warm
We have seen very different electoral outcomes in just a week. First was Scotland, the hot thing, with the Scottish National Party winning, at least in numbers of sits, the Scottish elections – and suddenly Number 10 has a Quebec in his own backyard. Will Alex Salmond’s SNP push for a self-determination referendum in this parliament? They really would like and maybe even try but is not likely. But the very fact that a pro-independence party is the single biggest party in part of the UK is more than interesting in political terms.
Scotland was on Thursday, then Sunday came and the conservative Sarkozy won the French elections, with a 53% of the share, against Royal’s 47% - she moved fast in recognizing her opponent’s victory. That was the “cold water” for any progressive soul in the Hexagon and in Europe in general. The son of emigrants who called “scum” to other son of emigrants is now the president of France.
And on Tuesday, came the hopeful picture that everyone was expecting: Ian Paysley senior (“Mr Never!”) and Martin McGuinness laughing together in the power-sharing Stormont government. If the darkest voice of Unionist supremacy and a former IRA commander can work together for a better future for the people of Ireland I don’t understand why in other European conflicts they can’t find the right formula with much less difficult parameters.
Scotland was on Thursday, then Sunday came and the conservative Sarkozy won the French elections, with a 53% of the share, against Royal’s 47% - she moved fast in recognizing her opponent’s victory. That was the “cold water” for any progressive soul in the Hexagon and in Europe in general. The son of emigrants who called “scum” to other son of emigrants is now the president of France.
And on Tuesday, came the hopeful picture that everyone was expecting: Ian Paysley senior (“Mr Never!”) and Martin McGuinness laughing together in the power-sharing Stormont government. If the darkest voice of Unionist supremacy and a former IRA commander can work together for a better future for the people of Ireland I don’t understand why in other European conflicts they can’t find the right formula with much less difficult parameters.
Friday, April 27, 2007
So many books, so little time...
Few books I am enjoying lately:
The Stories of Raymond Carver.
Picador.
447 pages.
The Foundation – A great American secret.
How private wealth is changing the world.
By Joel L. Fleishman.
Public Affairs.
357 pages.
The Shadow of the Sun
By Ryszard Kapuscinski
Penguin
325 pages
The Stories of Raymond Carver.
Picador.
447 pages.
The Foundation – A great American secret.
How private wealth is changing the world.
By Joel L. Fleishman.
Public Affairs.
357 pages.
The Shadow of the Sun
By Ryszard Kapuscinski
Penguin
325 pages
Intelligent but blind?
The Economist produced a special report, last March, about the European Union. Good and well informed in general, I got badly surprised with the last paragraph of the piece titled “Are you sitting comfortably?”, describing the different government bodies of the EU. Goes like that (italics are mine).
“The EU has a plethora of other agencies, as well as the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank, the world’s biggest multilateral borrower. Among the more puzzling are two Brussels-based advisory bodies: the Economic and Social Committee, which brings together the “social partners”, and the eponymous Committee of the Regions. Between them they cost some 150m Euro ($200m) a year to run, and nobody can remember what they are for. But this being the EU, nobody dares to scrap them either.”
I like The Economist. I think it’s a serious, well informed, quite fair and truly liberal product. Having said that, the above paragraph shows very well the no-so-nice face of the magazine’s background ideology. Mainly two points to comment here:
Every human group has a religion, in a broad sense. For some people is their god, for others their culture or language, for others is race or ethnic group. The Economist has its own religion, the biggest god in Anglo-Saxon societies: the almighty Market. Fair to say that historically the so-called Left has showed a narrow-minded attitude towards the potentiality of the market, underestimating it. But you can go to the other extreme and think, as The Economist does, that the market will solve every single problem in any society at any time. Is in this ideological context where we should place the arrogance showed by the magazine snubbing a body which encompasses the social partners of any society. Do they really think it is viable to solve gross basic problems without counting, for instances, with unions, employers associations and main social movements like the green or immigration charities? What kind of democracy has The Economist in mind where they say things like that? The classical XIX c one with just a vote every 4 years and a Parliament who thinks knows everything?
The other shameful point is the description they do of the Committee of the Regions. It seems The Economist think it’s useless and should be scraped. I won’t argue that at the moment this body is quite a flowerpot and empty shell but I would say that the right step is to give this (or another similar body) more powers and not less. Why? I know what some people will say immediately, this body is not representative as their members are not elected. True, but it seems that is not the only organ which has this illness in the EU, and some very serious people don’t criticize those other bodies. The Economist shows here the typical blindness of any group of people who, being members of a big ethnic group (in this case English, with the UK state of their own) don’t see the need of any kind of representation for sub-states national realities. They think these organs are not needed and are just a waste of resources. Wrong, dead wrong. With this point of view, looking at any national claim like a “romantic” posture you will never understand the deep frustrations that some small minorities accumulate after years of cultural and linguistic colonization (some of them gentle, some of them brutal). With this arrogant attitude you will never understand what’s going on in Wales, Brittany, Scotland, Corsica, Ireland, Catalonia, Frisland, Galicia, Quebec, Basque Country or Belgium, which is falling apart in a very polite way. Collective identity issues are one of the main reason behind a range of conflicts.
“The EU has a plethora of other agencies, as well as the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank, the world’s biggest multilateral borrower. Among the more puzzling are two Brussels-based advisory bodies: the Economic and Social Committee, which brings together the “social partners”, and the eponymous Committee of the Regions. Between them they cost some 150m Euro ($200m) a year to run, and nobody can remember what they are for. But this being the EU, nobody dares to scrap them either.”
I like The Economist. I think it’s a serious, well informed, quite fair and truly liberal product. Having said that, the above paragraph shows very well the no-so-nice face of the magazine’s background ideology. Mainly two points to comment here:
Every human group has a religion, in a broad sense. For some people is their god, for others their culture or language, for others is race or ethnic group. The Economist has its own religion, the biggest god in Anglo-Saxon societies: the almighty Market. Fair to say that historically the so-called Left has showed a narrow-minded attitude towards the potentiality of the market, underestimating it. But you can go to the other extreme and think, as The Economist does, that the market will solve every single problem in any society at any time. Is in this ideological context where we should place the arrogance showed by the magazine snubbing a body which encompasses the social partners of any society. Do they really think it is viable to solve gross basic problems without counting, for instances, with unions, employers associations and main social movements like the green or immigration charities? What kind of democracy has The Economist in mind where they say things like that? The classical XIX c one with just a vote every 4 years and a Parliament who thinks knows everything?
The other shameful point is the description they do of the Committee of the Regions. It seems The Economist think it’s useless and should be scraped. I won’t argue that at the moment this body is quite a flowerpot and empty shell but I would say that the right step is to give this (or another similar body) more powers and not less. Why? I know what some people will say immediately, this body is not representative as their members are not elected. True, but it seems that is not the only organ which has this illness in the EU, and some very serious people don’t criticize those other bodies. The Economist shows here the typical blindness of any group of people who, being members of a big ethnic group (in this case English, with the UK state of their own) don’t see the need of any kind of representation for sub-states national realities. They think these organs are not needed and are just a waste of resources. Wrong, dead wrong. With this point of view, looking at any national claim like a “romantic” posture you will never understand the deep frustrations that some small minorities accumulate after years of cultural and linguistic colonization (some of them gentle, some of them brutal). With this arrogant attitude you will never understand what’s going on in Wales, Brittany, Scotland, Corsica, Ireland, Catalonia, Frisland, Galicia, Quebec, Basque Country or Belgium, which is falling apart in a very polite way. Collective identity issues are one of the main reason behind a range of conflicts.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Amazing...
"You campaign in poetry but you must govern in prose"
Mario Cuomo - former governor of New York.
Polish witchhunt
By Ignacio Ramonet
The Poles call it the law of lustration, a term meaning ritual purification; the word has strong connotations of repentance and penitence in Poland, where history and Catholicism are so closely intertwined.
Under the law, which was passed last October and entered into force on 15 March this year, 700,000 Poles are required to confess any collaboration with the communists between 1945 and 1989. All senior civil servants, university professors, lawyers, headmasters and journalists born before 1972 must now confess their past sins by 15 May.
They must all fill in a form and answer the question: “Did you secretly and knowingly collaborate with the former communist security services?” The forms must be handed to their immediate superiors, who will forward them to the Institute of National Memory in Warsaw, which will check its records and issue a certificate of political purity. Journalists employed in any public service will be dismissed automatically if they collaborated. Anyone who refuses to answer the question or who is proved to have lied may be banned from their profession for 10 years.
This mad law, which is causing uproar in the European Union, makes the McCarthyites of the United States in the 1950s look like amateurs at the practise of anti-communism. It is the main feature of a witchhunt launched by the authorities after the conservative president, Lech Kaczynski, and his twin brother, prime minister Jaroskaw Kaczynski, came to power in Poland in October 2005.
Many Poles consider the law to be unconstitutional because it requires citizens to prove that they did not do something. It may be quashed by the Constitutional Court, which will deliver its verdict in May.
The ruling rightwing, Catholic and nationalist coalition (the Kaczynski brothers’ Law and Justice party, the agrarian Self Defence party and the League of Polish Families) is pursuing a disturbing policy of tough enforcement of moral values. Roman Giertych, deputy prime minister, minister of education and leader of the League, has just tabled a homophobic bill, causing more international uproar and protests from human rights organisations. Under the bill, which could be presented within a month, any person disclosing their homosexuality “or any other sexual deviation” in a university or scholastic establishment would be liable to a fine, dismissal or a term of imprisonment.
The minister’s father, the League MEP Maciej Giertych, caused protests in February when he published an antisemitic pamphlet, paid for by the European parliament and issued under its logo, containing such statements as “the Jews create their own ghettos” and “antisemitism is not racism”.
These anti-communist purges and attempts to reimpose an authoritarian moral order in Poland — and also to some extent in Ukraine, Lithuania and other countries formerly in the eastern bloc — conceal a worrying nostalgia for the period before the second world war, when racism was blatant. Some of those caught up in the current wave of revisionism go as far as extolling collaboration with the Third Reich against the Soviet Union.
The idea, so popular with the media, that Putin’s Russia is merely a covert extension of the old USSR inspires the spirit that prompted Warsaw to agree to instal on Polish territory the anti-missile shield designed by the Pentagon to protect the United States. It did that without deigning to consult its partners in the EU and Nato. Which goes to show that paranoia in politics can lead not only to spiritual atrophy but also to a special form of treachery.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
EuropAZ
A is for Arsenal
Arsène Wenger and Thierry Henry's exercise in footballing elegance (with barely a British boot on the pitch) would hardly be possible without Europe's open transfer market
B is for borders
During a journey from Belgium to Luxembourg to France to Germany to Poland a passport had to be shown only once and then cursorily
C is for climate change
27 governments have just agreed the most ambitious package ever to tackle global warming. If the US, China, and India followed suit, the future would look less bleak
D is for democracy
dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and all over eastern Europe are in the dustbin of history
E is for the euro
On trips across much of Europe, travellers no longer have to change currencies and no longer come home with a pocketful of useless coins
F is for flights
Stag parties in Prague? Shopping in Barcelona? How could we afford it without the cheap airlines enabled by deregulating European air traffic
G is for Germany
Until anchored in the EU, Germany caused untold grief to most of us
H is for homebuying
The British mania for that place in the sun is a result of the EU requiring members to open their housing markets to foreign EU citizens
I is for international clout
Europe's sum is greater than its parts when it comes to making a difference internationally
J is for jobs
Working anywhere in Europe is now easy and occurring on an unprecedented scale
K is for Kosovo
The biggest challenge. EU is preparing to steer the province to independence in its first such mission
L is for London
As Europe's pre-eminent financial centre, the City of London has benefited enormously from the single market
M is for market
The single one of goods and services has been a boon for European consumers
N is for nationalism
It ain't what it used to be
O is for openness
What the EU has done best in expanding from an original six to a current 27 countries
P is for peace
Don't take it for granted in the continent that gave us Auschwitz.
Q is for queueing
Less and less of it on the borders between EU countries
R is for regions
Remote and poorer areas of Europe benefit from structural funds that amount to a great social democratic exercise in wealth redistribution
S is for soft power
if the EU's so bad, why does everyone else want to join?
T is for transport All of Europe is being knitted together by road and rail infrastructure projects
U is for unification
In 2004, when eight post-communist countries joined, made Europe whole (nearly), democratic, and free for the first time ever
V is for variety
From Krakow to Florence to Edinburgh to Seville, no union has ever comprised such splendid diversity
W is for welfare
The European social model cushions the effects of globalisation
X is for xenophobia
National prejudices start to break down the more the citizens of Europe mix and meet
Y is for yard
Europe encouraged all countries to unify measuring systems
Z is for Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe and his henchmen are barred all over Europe, at British insistence, but only because Britain is in the EU
Arsène Wenger and Thierry Henry's exercise in footballing elegance (with barely a British boot on the pitch) would hardly be possible without Europe's open transfer market
B is for borders
During a journey from Belgium to Luxembourg to France to Germany to Poland a passport had to be shown only once and then cursorily
C is for climate change
27 governments have just agreed the most ambitious package ever to tackle global warming. If the US, China, and India followed suit, the future would look less bleak
D is for democracy
dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and all over eastern Europe are in the dustbin of history
E is for the euro
On trips across much of Europe, travellers no longer have to change currencies and no longer come home with a pocketful of useless coins
F is for flights
Stag parties in Prague? Shopping in Barcelona? How could we afford it without the cheap airlines enabled by deregulating European air traffic
G is for Germany
Until anchored in the EU, Germany caused untold grief to most of us
H is for homebuying
The British mania for that place in the sun is a result of the EU requiring members to open their housing markets to foreign EU citizens
I is for international clout
Europe's sum is greater than its parts when it comes to making a difference internationally
J is for jobs
Working anywhere in Europe is now easy and occurring on an unprecedented scale
K is for Kosovo
The biggest challenge. EU is preparing to steer the province to independence in its first such mission
L is for London
As Europe's pre-eminent financial centre, the City of London has benefited enormously from the single market
M is for market
The single one of goods and services has been a boon for European consumers
N is for nationalism
It ain't what it used to be
O is for openness
What the EU has done best in expanding from an original six to a current 27 countries
P is for peace
Don't take it for granted in the continent that gave us Auschwitz.
Q is for queueing
Less and less of it on the borders between EU countries
R is for regions
Remote and poorer areas of Europe benefit from structural funds that amount to a great social democratic exercise in wealth redistribution
S is for soft power
if the EU's so bad, why does everyone else want to join?
T is for transport All of Europe is being knitted together by road and rail infrastructure projects
U is for unification
In 2004, when eight post-communist countries joined, made Europe whole (nearly), democratic, and free for the first time ever
V is for variety
From Krakow to Florence to Edinburgh to Seville, no union has ever comprised such splendid diversity
W is for welfare
The European social model cushions the effects of globalisation
X is for xenophobia
National prejudices start to break down the more the citizens of Europe mix and meet
Y is for yard
Europe encouraged all countries to unify measuring systems
Z is for Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe and his henchmen are barred all over Europe, at British insistence, but only because Britain is in the EU
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Lees?
It was written on the wall, upstairs:
"I will drink life to the lees!"
And I didn't understand what "lees" mean.
To be honest, more than four years later I haven't looked in the dictionary the exact meaning of the word but I understand perfectly the philosophy behind the concept, that's for sure.
"I will drink life to the lees!"
And I didn't understand what "lees" mean.
To be honest, more than four years later I haven't looked in the dictionary the exact meaning of the word but I understand perfectly the philosophy behind the concept, that's for sure.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Jupiter
He knew Pete and he knew me. But Pete and I weren’t close friends. He would spend some days with one of us, then another with the other so, one day, he decided to meet up both of us and let’s see what happened. That was maybe 25 years ago.
Jupiter was always an especial person, different in the nicest way; blonde with curly hair wasn’t the everyday thing to be honest. Neither was very usual to have the entire collection of the British Encyclopedia… in English, at home. I remember his dad, John, reading all these newspapers and weekly culture and politics magazines and thinking that that was weird… till we ended up doing the same thing few years later.
I remember Jupiter coming over our place every weekend after lunch, while I was trying to do the washing up… I would finish just in time for the evening cinema film. We would sit in the kitchen sofa and watch the after lunch TV film and chat about this and that. We would offer anything to him and Jupiter’s answer always would be “No, thank-you-very-much” – that was a nicety in our time as the rest of kids used to grab whatever we were offered!
Jupiter was for me…well, Jupiter. I remember thinking why everyone would say that he was so clever… older people try to be nice, you know, I would think. With time I would realize how naturally intelligent that boy was… I never saw him bringing any school book for the weekend. They lived in the big-big city, so far and so foreign, linguistically, in values and in everything! When the rest of us were struggling with the next exam, he would be just hanging around, half bored, or just trying to explain us whatever we couldn’t understand from school lessons.
We grew up together, half friends, half brothers. So different but always so close. More than once I thought how wonderful person would be the mix of his good qualities and mines (I used to say that I was everything he wasn’t and he was everything I wasn’t) but I suppose that would be a little Frankenstein, not a real person. The fact is that we do admire each other… for being the exact opposite to ourselves!
Do you know a lot of people who picks the basic of a language just watching TV in this language? Nope, neither do I, just one. Or someone who ends up in an elite foreign university because his school marks were the top of the top? Just one, him. Or someone who has been a translator, university teacher, travel guide and a hippy all together? Not a big bunch, I suppose.
He went to the Big Apple and in bloody three months was a tourist guide, explaining to locals the history of their own city! I visited him there and I met one of the most interesting cities in the planet. A bit rough too, of course, but it’s part of the game, isn’t it?
Dad departed some years ago. I remember smokey and bony uncle dancing the same salute dance but in such a different way. I remember Jupiter with the flag in his chest, after in the piazza bar. Just flashes.
We have been together in so many projects. Talking about films in the radio, doing things for the magazine, setting up the fiesta bar every year in the street or the huge restaurant with some shorts and a T-shirt. Or just meeting in the local café every Saturday morning with coffee and lots of paper… a weird bunch. I remember him saying “everything was under control” then getting late to a key doctor appointment J when health was an issue and I remember him also in a van and buying some wine, in another key part of my life. I also remember both of us discovering something called “pizza” because we didn’t hook any girl and didn’t know what to do – the rest of friends did!
The lowest point was (my shame) when we were going to the old city and I critised his driving… he was ready to drop me there, in the middle of nowhere! Road rage, I suppose J
And now is mum Mary who has left. Hats off my friend as I don’t know a lot of people who has spent a year and a half like you, looking after old nice Mary. As the Tarot woman said, she is going to meet her important man, your dad. And I was happy when I heard that. And I am sad but at the same time, I am happy for you my dearest friend. At this very moment the funeral is going on… and I am with you.
Jupiter was always an especial person, different in the nicest way; blonde with curly hair wasn’t the everyday thing to be honest. Neither was very usual to have the entire collection of the British Encyclopedia… in English, at home. I remember his dad, John, reading all these newspapers and weekly culture and politics magazines and thinking that that was weird… till we ended up doing the same thing few years later.
I remember Jupiter coming over our place every weekend after lunch, while I was trying to do the washing up… I would finish just in time for the evening cinema film. We would sit in the kitchen sofa and watch the after lunch TV film and chat about this and that. We would offer anything to him and Jupiter’s answer always would be “No, thank-you-very-much” – that was a nicety in our time as the rest of kids used to grab whatever we were offered!
Jupiter was for me…well, Jupiter. I remember thinking why everyone would say that he was so clever… older people try to be nice, you know, I would think. With time I would realize how naturally intelligent that boy was… I never saw him bringing any school book for the weekend. They lived in the big-big city, so far and so foreign, linguistically, in values and in everything! When the rest of us were struggling with the next exam, he would be just hanging around, half bored, or just trying to explain us whatever we couldn’t understand from school lessons.
We grew up together, half friends, half brothers. So different but always so close. More than once I thought how wonderful person would be the mix of his good qualities and mines (I used to say that I was everything he wasn’t and he was everything I wasn’t) but I suppose that would be a little Frankenstein, not a real person. The fact is that we do admire each other… for being the exact opposite to ourselves!
Do you know a lot of people who picks the basic of a language just watching TV in this language? Nope, neither do I, just one. Or someone who ends up in an elite foreign university because his school marks were the top of the top? Just one, him. Or someone who has been a translator, university teacher, travel guide and a hippy all together? Not a big bunch, I suppose.
He went to the Big Apple and in bloody three months was a tourist guide, explaining to locals the history of their own city! I visited him there and I met one of the most interesting cities in the planet. A bit rough too, of course, but it’s part of the game, isn’t it?
Dad departed some years ago. I remember smokey and bony uncle dancing the same salute dance but in such a different way. I remember Jupiter with the flag in his chest, after in the piazza bar. Just flashes.
We have been together in so many projects. Talking about films in the radio, doing things for the magazine, setting up the fiesta bar every year in the street or the huge restaurant with some shorts and a T-shirt. Or just meeting in the local café every Saturday morning with coffee and lots of paper… a weird bunch. I remember him saying “everything was under control” then getting late to a key doctor appointment J when health was an issue and I remember him also in a van and buying some wine, in another key part of my life. I also remember both of us discovering something called “pizza” because we didn’t hook any girl and didn’t know what to do – the rest of friends did!
The lowest point was (my shame) when we were going to the old city and I critised his driving… he was ready to drop me there, in the middle of nowhere! Road rage, I suppose J
And now is mum Mary who has left. Hats off my friend as I don’t know a lot of people who has spent a year and a half like you, looking after old nice Mary. As the Tarot woman said, she is going to meet her important man, your dad. And I was happy when I heard that. And I am sad but at the same time, I am happy for you my dearest friend. At this very moment the funeral is going on… and I am with you.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
From Pain To Power
We all have, sometimes, crisis and shake ups in our lives. When it comes you can answer it in two possible ways: you can feel down, say the world is unfair and that the rest of human beings are stupid and worthless… or you can use the very same crisis as catalyst to transform yourself, change pain and suffering into positive energy and raise your head and look at your life from the eagle’s eye and, with historical perspective, ask: “What do I want in life?”, “What is blocking me to achieve what I want?” and “Am I being honest with myself?”
Then, you start working. Bloody hard.
There are not magical recipes. You chat with friends, ask for advice, you read this book, you listen this talk and, above all, you chat with yourself: what happened; why; is a coincidence that it happened now? Is surprising the reaction of your loved ones? Etc. In a few weeks/months I have put together some bits and now they are my little commandments, maybe ten, maybe more. Is just a draft as I will always be changing and improving it. But mine. Hope you like it.
- Self-focused: You are your best friend. No one else can be the centre of your life. Enjoy being with yourself, believe you are an amazing person. Because you are.
- Time: The past is gone; we can’t see the future. The now is the only time we have. Enjoy the only real time, the now.
- Space: Keep your mind where your feet are. Don’t put yourself where you are not physically. Enjoy the only real space: the here.
- Focus: concentrate 100% on what are you doing. Make the most of the moment, the place, the activity or the person in front of you.
- Give: giving is wonderful, the more you give the more full you feel. Generosity attracts. But do not expect anything in return.
- Ask: when needed, asking for help, advice, support… is good, is human and is what we need when we are the lowest. Appreciate what you have received.
- Freedom: freedom (ours, other’s) attracts, you are there because you want not because you are forced; control, on the other hand, scares and puts others off.
- Compare: do not compare immeasurable realities; appreciate what you are. You are as good as any other, and remember: all of us have our holes in the same place!
- Humble: Humbleness and humility are key. We are no more than others.
- Balance: be balanced in all vital fields like work, relationships, body, etc. You want to keep an internal balance inside each field and also among them.
- Fear: it’s a matter of perception; it doesn’t matter what is out there, is how you perceive it. Feel the fear… and do it, anyway!
- Patience: a massive virtue. Learn the art of managing time. Use it before taking any decision, for example.
- Shoes: Put yourself in other’s shoes and see the world from there. You will understand others better doing that.
- Language: language is a powerful tool; a positive concept transmits positive energy; using negative ones we feel down and with negative energy. Remember that the words we use are like mirrors of our mind.
- Relate: Relations (family, friends, partners) are like plants, water them often in order to keep them healthy, fresh and green. Don’t take anything for granted in a relationship, no-one and nothing is forever. We owe no-one.
- Inner peace: or, in other words, Happiness. What you want to achieve.
Then, you start working. Bloody hard.
There are not magical recipes. You chat with friends, ask for advice, you read this book, you listen this talk and, above all, you chat with yourself: what happened; why; is a coincidence that it happened now? Is surprising the reaction of your loved ones? Etc. In a few weeks/months I have put together some bits and now they are my little commandments, maybe ten, maybe more. Is just a draft as I will always be changing and improving it. But mine. Hope you like it.
- Self-focused: You are your best friend. No one else can be the centre of your life. Enjoy being with yourself, believe you are an amazing person. Because you are.
- Time: The past is gone; we can’t see the future. The now is the only time we have. Enjoy the only real time, the now.
- Space: Keep your mind where your feet are. Don’t put yourself where you are not physically. Enjoy the only real space: the here.
- Focus: concentrate 100% on what are you doing. Make the most of the moment, the place, the activity or the person in front of you.
- Give: giving is wonderful, the more you give the more full you feel. Generosity attracts. But do not expect anything in return.
- Ask: when needed, asking for help, advice, support… is good, is human and is what we need when we are the lowest. Appreciate what you have received.
- Freedom: freedom (ours, other’s) attracts, you are there because you want not because you are forced; control, on the other hand, scares and puts others off.
- Compare: do not compare immeasurable realities; appreciate what you are. You are as good as any other, and remember: all of us have our holes in the same place!
- Humble: Humbleness and humility are key. We are no more than others.
- Balance: be balanced in all vital fields like work, relationships, body, etc. You want to keep an internal balance inside each field and also among them.
- Fear: it’s a matter of perception; it doesn’t matter what is out there, is how you perceive it. Feel the fear… and do it, anyway!
- Patience: a massive virtue. Learn the art of managing time. Use it before taking any decision, for example.
- Shoes: Put yourself in other’s shoes and see the world from there. You will understand others better doing that.
- Language: language is a powerful tool; a positive concept transmits positive energy; using negative ones we feel down and with negative energy. Remember that the words we use are like mirrors of our mind.
- Relate: Relations (family, friends, partners) are like plants, water them often in order to keep them healthy, fresh and green. Don’t take anything for granted in a relationship, no-one and nothing is forever. We owe no-one.
- Inner peace: or, in other words, Happiness. What you want to achieve.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Happy
That’s the name of one of my best friends, Happy.
We have been together practically all our lives, we could say that we are family. We love each other a lot because, I suspect, we are very similar and very different at the same time.
I love her name, Happy, bright and original. Wasn’t very easy to put this name to little babies at that time, not at all, I can tell… southern European niceties, you know? It sounded soooo foreign to them. Poor guys, they are still learning.
One of the first memories I have is about me being the junior partner among older people, bigger people. We would have art lessons in the evening, with that amazing blind man who saw more than anyone then we would start running and pressing all the ring buttons in our way, calling and running away, calling and running away… wild fun! “Who is it, who is it??!!”. Then, in front of the perfumes shop we would start playing those kind of games that are too basic and too boring for an adult to explain but you’d play it as it wouldn’t be any tomorrow.
I was smaller, and slower, and any other …-er you can imagine. So I was caught very fast and they I would try to catch the others but they had all the –er’s, in the opposite direction: they were faster, bigger, smarter… so after a while Happy would play in my place and would ask me to run faster and to be smarter. I tried.
You are a teenager when you see yourself arguing with your mum and later asking to yourself what the hell was the real reason to do so… tricky times. Ah, and you start locking the toilet door (a new experience in our, other way, hippy house). I remember Happy knocking the toilet door and asking if I had something made of gold… it made me smile and, since then, I didn’t lock the door again. Not consciously at least. We were a very natural triangle, Happy, Smally and myself… friends who were half brothers or brothers who were very good friends, either way. Friendship, tricky to define. Family, on the contrary, is easy: is blood, which is thicker than water. And stays.
Happy, one of the most talented person I know in a very natural way, wasn’t showing it off at all. Even being relatively young it was very clear to me that Happy needed to exploit this amazingly strong and easy personality in a way. A high career was tried, wrong step and suffering. After a dangerous transition a much sensible step was tried and then I saw Happy radiating her name, studying, living, working and exploring new fields in life. Geographically close, vitally visiting Pluto.
Happy is an interesting mix of sharpness and kindness; rudeness and softness; diplomacy and bluntness. This is not a word-game, trying to be balanced or a cool description. I really mean that, I don’t know any other person who can be both things at the same time in a more genuine way, in a more natural way. Well, except maybe Tony Blair the only person in this planet who can be relaxed and tense at the same time. But if there is an adjective that describes the soul of Happy, that’s generosity, in all senses. Monetarily, I don’t know how she does it, I think she found what alchemists have been looking for generations but she is not selling the formula. In other fields, she just does the right thing. Anyone who knows her can tell that. Really remarkable.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
A Present To My Friend
You saw me first with a bike padlock around my neck, sorry, “nick”. I remember two girl names but not being very sure at all who was who. That Xmas, among games that anyone knew except me, we ended up more jumping than dancing with music at 4am and after that the reading of a poem, May. And I slept in the red sofa.
I remember it was snowing the first time I went from your place to my place thru the Village. And I discovered the Village, thank to you. Then was Lord Of The Rings in the old cinema of Walthamstow. Now it’s closed.
You showed me the most interesting parts of London, Hampstead – the heath and the creperie, Grenwhich, Blackfriars, the Turkish restaurant!
We got drunk together more than once, you loved good whiskey, I showed you Martini. And ever since I have seen a bottle of vermouth in your house.
Gina and piano are synonyms.
I always loved listening you playing the piano. I used to be by the next sofa, just watching and listening, usually half drunk, especially on parties when after some drinks I couldn’t understand “a shit”.
My English was ok but I remember struggling trying to keep the path of the conversation around the table. Then it got better and better, thanks to you basically, and to Mel and to Jonathan. Good proof of my linguistic improvement are the golden sentences such as “ If I am forced”, “Sorry my English!”, “I don’t understand a shit” and, thanks to Bella, “permanent siesta”.
Then the Hammersmith walk came.
I remember not knowing if I’d find anyone in the house and Mel opening the door, just with a towel and full of foam, from the bath. I remember the feeling of finding an oasis. And also a never again feeling. And we talked by phone the very same night and you just recognized my cracky voice, “Hey, it’s me”. And I crossed the city, for a week, in your bike. That was crazy, but I did it.
You showed me what love and friendship means to you, many times. I think I showed mine when you stayed in the hospital.
You are piano, and also are forest, of course.
What a luxury having this amazing forest just ten minutes away where we used to live. It’s weird to talk about Walthamstow in past tense. I really loved our last stroll thru the forest, just last Sunday. Maybe it’s enough for today, I am getting nostalgic.
Friendship can’t be described with a logical script. There are flashes. And arguments!
We love you babe. I love you. And we miss you. Zoixonak, laune!!!!
I remember it was snowing the first time I went from your place to my place thru the Village. And I discovered the Village, thank to you. Then was Lord Of The Rings in the old cinema of Walthamstow. Now it’s closed.
You showed me the most interesting parts of London, Hampstead – the heath and the creperie, Grenwhich, Blackfriars, the Turkish restaurant!
We got drunk together more than once, you loved good whiskey, I showed you Martini. And ever since I have seen a bottle of vermouth in your house.
Gina and piano are synonyms.
I always loved listening you playing the piano. I used to be by the next sofa, just watching and listening, usually half drunk, especially on parties when after some drinks I couldn’t understand “a shit”.
My English was ok but I remember struggling trying to keep the path of the conversation around the table. Then it got better and better, thanks to you basically, and to Mel and to Jonathan. Good proof of my linguistic improvement are the golden sentences such as “ If I am forced”, “Sorry my English!”, “I don’t understand a shit” and, thanks to Bella, “permanent siesta”.
Then the Hammersmith walk came.
I remember not knowing if I’d find anyone in the house and Mel opening the door, just with a towel and full of foam, from the bath. I remember the feeling of finding an oasis. And also a never again feeling. And we talked by phone the very same night and you just recognized my cracky voice, “Hey, it’s me”. And I crossed the city, for a week, in your bike. That was crazy, but I did it.
You showed me what love and friendship means to you, many times. I think I showed mine when you stayed in the hospital.
You are piano, and also are forest, of course.
What a luxury having this amazing forest just ten minutes away where we used to live. It’s weird to talk about Walthamstow in past tense. I really loved our last stroll thru the forest, just last Sunday. Maybe it’s enough for today, I am getting nostalgic.
Friendship can’t be described with a logical script. There are flashes. And arguments!
We love you babe. I love you. And we miss you. Zoixonak, laune!!!!
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Letter Of The Day
In this week's The Economist, Letters section:
SIR - Please do not ever mention George Bush. And Winston Churchill in the same sentence again, even if you must break all the rules of grammar to do so.
Steve Pettit
California
I love it...
SIR - Please do not ever mention George Bush. And Winston Churchill in the same sentence again, even if you must break all the rules of grammar to do so.
Steve Pettit
California
I love it...
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Quote Of The Day
"A revolution is a failure if it only changes the accents of the powerful"
James Conolly
James Conolly
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
True Friendship
A friend of mine says always that friends are like pans: you know how good they are when you put them in the fire... I have the best pans in the world in my kitchen.
I want to check my email
From the man who maybe
Holding me some Friday night
Like this one
But I stay downstairs
I remember you
By the piano
Watching me
This is your night.
Thank You, my friend.
I want to check my email
From the man who maybe
Holding me some Friday night
Like this one
But I stay downstairs
I remember you
By the piano
Watching me
This is your night.
Thank You, my friend.
Name
When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.
I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.
by Carol Ann Duffy.
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.
I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.
by Carol Ann Duffy.
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