... about Question Time

This was a ghastly programme from North Finchley last night on BBC1 (5^th February 2015 at 10.45pm).

I am truly no fan of George Galloway … quite the opposite, in fact.  I simply can’t bear him but the behaviour of the Jewish members of the studio audience made me squirm with embarrassment.  I’m Jewish and, given the venue of the programme, I was well aware that the subject of anti-semitism would come up.  It is a great pity that some of the members of the audience didn’t comport themselves in a more composed and productive fashion. 

Galloway is horrid – that’s a given but, I agree with him on one thing.  In the wake of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris last month, a great deal has been said about freedom of speech and, if Galloway was on the Question Time panel, he had as much right to respond to a question without any form of interruption as any of the other panel members.

I think I also have to add that I believe the kid who asked the initial question on anti-semitism asked the WRONG question.  He wondered if Galloway was at all responsible for the very frightening rise in this old, old prejudice in the past 12 months.  Galloway is a symptom of poor media reporting about Israel and Zionism rather than the cause of it.  The better question to have asked would have been “Can the British media be held at all responsible for the rise in anti-semitism in the past year?”.  I fear that the honest answer would be a resounding “Yes”.  But the BBC and other UK broadcasters would never admit to such.

In the past few weeks it has been a total dichotomy to see the dignified and sympathetic way that the Liberation of Auschwitz and Holocaust Memorial Day have been covered but then to have BBC News cocking up really quite badly with the baby-faced Tim Willcox making a complete fool of himself by saying to a Parisian Jewish lady that the attack on the Kosher Supermarket could have been caused by there being Palestinian blood on JEWISH hands.  Jewish hands … not Israeli hands but Jewish hands.  Three soldiers were stabbed in Nice whilst guarding a Jewish building on Tuesday (3^rd February 2015).  BBC News editors saw fit to publish this item on its website but both on the 6 and 10 o’clock TV News that day Harry Redknapp’s resignation from QPR took precedence and not a word about the attack was uttered.

I’m fairly sure that BBC News has had its wrists slapped by the mere fact that the findings of The Balen Report were never released.  Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin and Lyse Doucet have become somewhat less polemic since the report was completed in 2004 but until there are reporters on the Middle East who aren’t all Arabists the situation is never going to change too much.

I worked at the BBC many years ago and, as an employee, I never experienced even one iota of anti-semitism whilst I was there but I very often felt uncomfortable as a listener and as a viewer during that period and I continue to feel that way as an ex-employee.  I know that when I worked there I had to compartmentalise on many occasions … one of my bosses was the ex-Head of the Arabic Service and my last job at the Corporation was organising seminars for MPs (which were, regardless of the titles, all about securing a larger licence fee).  On one occasion I found myself sandwiched between said ex-boss and an exuberant actor turned MP called Andrew Faulds who was extremely and vociferously pro-Arab.  I was asked how I felt.  My response … “beleaguered” was said with a slightly wry smile on my face. I didn’t feel threatened or afraid and I certainly didn’t dislike my ex-boss nor Mr Faulds.

Only recently, I met with a friend who works at the Corporation and we agreed that it would be better not to discuss the remarks made by Joan Rivers prior to her demise regarding last summer’s war in Gaza.  He’s a nice guy and neither he nor I have any idea how to solve the situation in that part of the Middle East … so why discuss?  I can’t honestly say that I know of ANY Jewish people in the UK who took any pleasure at all in seeing the effects of (a) Palestinians attacking Israel from tunnels with rockets and the kidnapping and murder of Jewish kids, (b) Israel’s response to such and (c) the amount of death and destruction meted out on ordinary Palestinian men, women and children … whether we believe that Hamas placed them in areas of weapons storage or not.

I err on the side of pessimism and I believe anti-semitism is cyclical.  I feel less comfortable in the UK now than I have ever done before and I’m not sure that this is because of Israel’s actions in Gaza.  The current zeitgeist is yet another upsurge in fascism and radicalisation in this country and I believe realistic pessimism is necessary to keep ALL of us alert regardless of whether we’re Jewish, Christian, Indian, Muslim or anything else.

Jewish people who take notice of what is going on the world never do feel entirely comfortable in any country and with good reason.  In the past year there have never been as many anti-semitic attacks since the Community Security Trust started to keep records.  But even before records were kept, Jewish people had to contend with Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts and, prior to that, during the duration of the Second World War, however much Winston Churchill got Britain through the war he would not sanction the bombing of train lines which led only to the Concentration Camps despite knowing exactly what was going on in them.

In 1948, when the UN tabled a vote on whether the area of Palestine (which was, at the time, 70% of Trans-Jordan) should become the Jewish State of Israel, the UK voted in favour and then what did it do?  The British troops armed Arabs living there so they could fight the existing Jewish population and new immigrants who had managed to survive the Holocaust.  How on earth can Jewish people in the Diaspora ever really feel at ease knowing that regardless of most friendly rhetoric we always have been and always will be just tolerated.

It isn’t the George Galloways of this world we have to fear … for heaven’s sake he and his like are laughable.  He is full of it and so are his followers.  Picture him crawling around pretending to be a cat with Rula Lenska on Celebrity Big Brother not so many years ago.

Know that the real enemy is a culture that receives its news in badly phrased sound bites and the diminution of real news having any impact either by not broadcasting it at all or by over-broadcasting it in the rolling news that we are subjected to these days.

 

about a very tentative return to writing ...

Hello, stranger!  How have you been, then?  I fear that I have neglected you most dreadfully and that if anyone has visited you in the past 2 years & 3 months all they will have seen are blogs that I posted long ago.

Now, please don't start thinking that I've neglected you because of not liking you any more.  I like you hugely ... as far as blog spots ... you're ace.  And please don't think that I've neglected you because of being bone idle.  This wouldn't be accurate at all.  My idleness only goes skin deep and never gets as far as my bones.

So - why then have I seemingly ignored you?

Silly stuff really ... huge doubts about having anything interesting to say and even greater doubts about anyone actually wanting to read anything that isn't hyper interesting or, at very least, written with huge amounts of confidence.

I've left it far too long ... so, with several quite alarming trepidations, here I am writing to you again.  About what?

Well, nothing.  (That's not true).

Here's something.  Deep breath.  After the extraordinary comings and goings of MPs and, amongst them, the Culture Secretary, I came to the conclusion that sometimes the best woman for a government post might well be a man.  I could go further than that.  Many of the best jobs should be given to humans regardless of whether they're men or women or black or white or orange ... just humans. 

I wonder if less time was spent on being politically correct and ensuring that there are enough skirts on the front rows of all benches of the Commons if a government could actually get on with something that matters.

The News leaves me feeling absolutely helpless just now.  UK Rain, Ukraine, terrorism ... most of the time I feel like screaming. If only everyone would just leave everyone else alone.

And if only misogynists would try to bear in mind that none of them would actually exist if a woman hadn't schlepped them around in her stomach for 9 months prior to their birth, maybe they too could start to focus on something rather more worthwhile.

There ... 3 paragraphs about stuff other than my nervousness about returning to blogging.  Back in the day, I faithfully used to attempt one blog per week. Not sure I can do that any more - but I won't leave it AS long again.

Seven & a half weeks seems like a very long time ...

Today my husband is currently en route to hospital for his second session of radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. He has to have a 10 minute blast each week day for the next 7½ weeks. He is behaving very calmly about the whole situation but I know him quite well. He’s frightened and that fear is, understandably, causing him to behave in more of an irritable fashion than usual. He looks and feels very tired but, at the moment, is insisting on carrying on “as usual” work-wise which, in one way, is laudable but I’m not hugely certain that wearing himself out is a brilliant idea when undergoing a treatment that can, amongst other side-effects, cumulatively make one feel exhausted.

We have been enormously lucky in receiving so many messages of good luck and kind wishes for his well-being from friends all over the world. I’ve been really rather overwhelmed by emails, messages on Twitter, calls from friends.

The sad fact is that I had to remind my husband’s own siblings that it would be good of them to contact him to find out how he’s doing. I received but one response to this reminder … my husband’s older brother emailed to request that I shouldn’t be so condescending. The dichotomy of having so many good wishes from friends makes his family’s behaviour seem all the more aggravating to me. I resolve not to give this too much priority but, that said, I’ve been up all night not only worrying about my husband but also prickling with indignation about his dysfunctional family.

This diary clearly isn’t only going to be about how my husband is coping with his treatment but also how I am feeling about it from day-to-day. I’m not going to spout rude words herein but suffice it to say that it would be a damned sight easier for me to deal with my husband’s fear than it is to navigate nervously around his denial. He and his family are so controlled (and, indeed, controlling) but I must remember that everyone deals with problems in their own way. Just now my husband’s way seems completely alien to me.

If anyone would care to scream on my behalf, I would be very grateful.

I'm having a bit of a worry ...

I’m having a bit of a worry …

On 1st January 2011, I wrote my last blog post … I didn’t exactly make any New Year’s Resolutions but I did say that I was going to write 200 words each day until those words became a book. I haven’t done that. Other things took over, the 200 words each day were abandoned and instead I became involved in learning about nearly every NHS geriatric ward in the environs of North East London and Essex which now all seems pretty pointless because my 90 year old father died anyway.

That sounds very churlish but, let’s face it, 90 year old gentlemen (and he was a GENTLE man) who suffer from Parkinson’s Disease and leukaemia tend not to get better and many of my daily visits were spent having one-sided conversations conducted in a jolly voice with someone who wasn’t ever going to respond. Sometimes I missed a day or two of visiting but then guilt got the better of me and once again I would sit at the bedside of a hallucinating nonagenarian and try for 30 minutes or an hour to make everything sound okay with his world. He died on 11th May and, sad as I am, it really and truly was for the best.

I should, at this point, also add … with just a tinge of spitefulness in my fingertips … that I believe if the NHS in this area had got its act together, his life may have been prolonged, with considerably more dignity than was the reality, for a while longer but, heck – what’s the point? He was shunted from pillar to post and back to pillar again. Each ward to which he was admitted had no idea of what his medications should have been, what his name was or indeed where he had come from. I made an official complaint to the NHS which was only answered after my MP prompted the Trust to respond – and I received that response a week or so after his demise. I write follow-up letters in my head night after night but none of them will get printed or sent because none of them will bring my Pa back.

In the middle of the marathon bout of hospital visiting, I had a bit more bad news … my husband has been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. He’s been having “wee problems” for about 3 years but is an extremely stubborn bugger and wouldn’t go to the Doctor – so, instead of having an enlarged prostate or even Stage 1 Prostate Cancer, he now has Stage 2 Prostate Cancer and is at home preparing for 7½ weeks of radiotherapy which we hope will see the cancer on its way. The good people of Twitter know my husband as OP which stands for Old Peculiar and, to the good people of Twitter, he IS old … he’s even older than I am and I am Methuselah and he IS peculiar – but so am I, so I guess we’re quite well-matched in an odd sort of a way. But he ISN’T that old and I have had enough of illness this year and I don’t want anything awful to happen to him. I just don’t. And stamping my feet and having a tantrum doesn’t solve anything at all but that’s exactly what I feel like doing – because it’s JUST NOT FAIR. He is a mild man, often an awkward sod and not as kind as people who meet him think he is, but he is mine and I want him to be well and happy and carry on being my husband and my son’s father.

And NOW look what I’ve done … I’ve made myself cry. And I am not supposed to do that.

To top it all, I have had to grow up … in the mother stakes. Josh, about whom I tweet frequently, is now 14 years old and he is on his first extended holiday away from home ever. He has spent an odd night away here and there but now he is away for a fortnight in the Middle East.

WHAT? Do I hear people cry “THE MIDDLE EAST”? Yes, dears … that most dangerous of countries in the Middle East … you know – the one that allows women to drive, doesn't make them walk 3 paces behind their husbands covered from head to toe in black burkhas, doesn't stone them if they happen to have sex before they're married or play away from home once they are, the one that doesn’t shoot its own citizens if they have a demonstration, the one that has proper democratic elections without the need of an Arab Spring to overthrow its despotic leaders … the one that is demonised by nearly every medium possible … Israel. I WILL say that most of its citizens are desperate for peace with its neighbours but make the dreadful mistake of voting in politicians whom, because they have a good command of English (albeit "American English"), they seem to think are "statesmen" when all that they really are, are warmongers with a good command of the English language.

And that's the little country that Josh is visiting. And I am missing my kid. I behaved disgracefully yesterday after I’d waved him off at 6.30am … I went out with a friend for a very non-kosher fried breakfast, came home, took 2 Temazepam and slept for nearly 24 hours … so I wouldn’t miss him at school out time or at breakfast time this morning. It worked for those 24 hours but I’d really only deferred the utter misery of not having him around and I feel positively ghastly tonight.

I miss him coming downstairs at 9.00pm to assure me that he’s going to have a shower “any minute”. I feel bereft at not having to remind him at 10.30pm that “any minute” does not, in fact, comprise 90 minutes and would he PERLEEEZ go and have a shower NOW.

I miss him interrupting my ‘phone calls. I could be on the ‘phone to the Queen herself but if Josh wants to talk to me … it would matter not. He talks. I scream at him and still he talks. I don’t listen to him and STILL HE TALKS. I miss him at 7.30am when he wakes up and demands “Mum, BE SARCASTIC … teach ME how to be sarcastic”. He doesn’t understand that I can’t help being sarcastic and I can’t switch it on or off like an electric light. And he doesn’t understand something much more important than that … sarcasm doesn’t win anyone any friends. I guess it takes an excess of 50 years on this planet to learn that for oneself.

I miss his jokes … even the ones that aren’t funny. I miss him changing his clothes 11 times after he comes home from school or 14 times on Saturdays and Sundays. I miss him saying “Yuch” to whatever I cook and then eating 2 helpings of everything. I miss him thinking he’s conning me when, in fact, I know EXACTLY how much chocolate he eats and how many cans of diet Coke he drinks. I miss him rapping tunelessly. I miss him following me around with his video camera. I miss him most dreadfully.

And I am very proud of myself because I now know what MY Ma went through when I went anywhere. I was an only child too and she was an uber-protective mother but she bit her tongue, gritted her teeth and didn’t wrap me in cotton wool and that is exactly how I try to be with Josh. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. But sure as hell – in these two weeks, he will be having the time of his life and it actually doesn’t matter how much I miss him because HIS independence matters so much more than my misery.

My Ma used to say to me about kids … “When they’re babies they make your arms ache and when they grow up they make your heart ache”.

She was very wise, was my Ma … and while I’m at it – I miss her too.

So … I’m having a bit of a worry. Usually, I stay in my shell when I’m miserable. I don’t tweet much because I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, I can do it all by myself. But tonight? Well, tonight, I just have to tell you how utterly and completely wretched I feel.

I bloody hope my next blog post is happier!

Thank you for reading. Please pass the Kleenex.