Bin men. Judge, jury and executioner.

Never is the householder so vulnerable as when he has forgotten to take out his bins in the morning. Out he rushes, bleary-eyed, dressing gown flapping indecently, dragging a wheelie-bin like a modern-day Sisyphus. At such times he is at the mercy of the bin men. And he knows it.

“Excuse me,” he says, ashamedly. “Terribly sorry to be a pain, but would you mind? I’m a bit late.” And he stretches his face into the expression of middle class apology. (You know the one: the corners of the mouth stretching towards either shoulder, the stiff-necked wiggle. It’s usually accompanied by a sort of “eeeer” sound, or a gargled “sorr-eee.” Try it — you’ll see what I mean.)

The bin men size him up, knowing that they hold in their calloused hands the fate of the man who — metaphorically, at least to start with — kneels before them. They could relieve him of his burden, perhaps grunt something nice. Or they could turn their backs, dooming him to a week of stinking piles of rubbish. Two weeks in some places.

In my adult life, I have lived in Winchester, Norwich and London, and played out this exact scenario in each city. I have to say that most recently, in Winchester, the experience was but a few degrees short of a pleasure. The bin man in question was courteous and obliging. He took my wheelie-bin off my hands with something approaching a smile, called me “mate,” and humped it cheerfully off towards the stinking jaws of his lorry.

Norwich, however, was another matter. Don’t get me wrong; the man took the bin. But he did so silently, sullenly, forcing me to fill the void with an increasingly elaborate apology involving children, ear infections and uncomfortable pillows. Having sensed that I was an outsider, his strategy was obvious. “It’s worth taking this prick’s bin,” he must have thought to himself, “if it will make him feel like even more of an arse.” I left Norwich shortly afterwards.

In London, the bin man regarded me laconically. “Want me to take this?” he said, eyeing me sidelong. Then he said it again. After the third time, realising that I still hadn’t cottoned on, he sighed and rubbed his fingers together suggestively.

I was taken aback. However, my indignation quickly gave way to a swift tally of hygienic verses financial disadvantage. “You’re not suggesting…” I said. The man nodded and, to underscore his point, rubbed his fingers together again. There was something nasty about those fingers. I persuaded him to wait and ran back to the house, clutching my dressing-gown like a half-dressed diva. Upon my return — pretty awkwardly, I must admit — I gave him a tenner. “Each,” he said, gesturing to two of his mates. I tried to read his face. Was this a joke? “Do you lot take visa?” I said.

As a coda, I should mention the way that bins are collected in Taiwan (I once spent a gap year there). At a randomly selected time, the bin lorry will turn up blasting pop music from speakers on the roof. The idea is that when you hear the music, you take your rubbish out and toss it onto the lorry. It tends to work fine. Except that up and down the country, cars with loud stereos are prompting people to dash onto the streets with their rubbish.

'those infuriating little orange diamonds'

Ok, so I know it’s the election tomorrow. The most important election for a generation and all that. But it gets right up my nose when my neighbours put political signs up in their windows.

Several of my neighbours here have done that this week. All Liberal, as it happens. You know, those infuriating little orange diamonds. But what’s so liberal about intimidating your local community for political gain? Do they really think that, as I’m about to put a tick on the ballot sheet, I’ll be hypnotised by weeks of subliminal suggestion and be magnetised towards the Lib Dem box? As it happens, I’m a swinging voter. I’m not sure which way the prevailing winds will blow when I cast my ballot tomorrow. But I think I might vote Tory, just because my neighbours don’t want me to.

And what if I was a Tory? How would I feel then? Would I dare to put a ‘vote for change’ sign up in my front window, in defiance of the burgeoning sea of Liberalism lining the houses where I live? And if I did, what then? Would I be ostracised? Would people stare through me, walk past me? Would they smash my windows in the middle of the night, or put a flaming turd through my letterbox?

I know what you’re thinking. If you were a Tory, you would deserve it. And maybe you’re right. But my point still stands: election or no election, people should keep their political opinions to themselves. This shameless bullying has to stop.

Now I’m off for a sherry and a duck shoot.

NB: As it turned out, Winchester went to the Tories — a surprise result. Obviously those Lib Dem stickers had the same effect on everyone else as they had on me! –JWS

the Tory logo: 'for some reason, I still expect the torch'.

He was a plump man, with a freshly-shaved, gammon face. His clothes — cords, checked shirt, fleece — indicated a country gent. I imagined him pointing a shotgun at a flock of ducks. He leaned awkwardly against the doorframe, and I caught sight of a badge pinned on his lapel. A white badge, with a green logo. Green?

‘I am campaigning for the Conservative candidate for Winchester, Steve Brine‘, he said.

Ah, yes. The new, green Tory logo. It’s been around for years, but for some reason I still expect the torch.

I was in my pyjamas holding a baby, but it didn’t seem to matter. Doorstepping campaigners are a bit like Jehovah’s Witnesses: vulnerable, an open target, automatically on the defensive. Even when homeowners are looking rather dishevelled, the campaigner’s the one that feels awkward. But I’m not one to take pot shots. I actually wanted to discuss some of the issues. Read the rest of this entry »

"It's poetry, the penknife. It's a tool of the earth".

For many years now, I have carried a small Swiss Army knife everywhere I go. It’s a habit I picked up while writing my first novel, when I did a stint working for Daunt Books in Marylebone. Bookshop workers often carry penknives. The humble-looking tools are invaluable for opening boxes, prising open rusty cash registers, and — on occasion — defending the shop against disgruntled members of the public.

To this day, I use my penknife several times a week at least. I suggest you follow my example. The penknife is one of those objects-of-old which the digital age has failed to suppress. It’s poetry, the penknife. It’s a tool of the earth. Ploughshares, moleskines, penknives. Practically Biblical. I bet Hemingway had one. Plus, the smallest models are no problem to carry in your pocket. And you’ll find it’s of far more use than you thought.

Which brings me to the point. Last week I went to the Passport Service building in London, and my precious penknife was taken from me. To be fair, they gave me a receipt, but I forgot to redeem it; by the time I realised I was penknife-less, I was halfway to Winchester on the train. So I was forced to buy a replacement, which I did yesterday on Amazon, feeling slightly guilty at not giving the business to the local gun shop.

The penknife arrived this morning. The amount of packaging was obscene. I thought it was a book, at first. The tiny sucked sweet of a knife was encased in plastic and surrounded in a swanky cardboard box, as if it were an ipod or a male grooming set. With a mild sense of outrage I set about freeing my knife from its natural-resource-derived shackles. I struggled for a couple of minutes before the irony hit me. It hit me so hard I had to sit down.

In order to open the Swiss Army Knife packaging, you need a Swiss Army Knife.

Ah, the bastards. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Pigs: a psychological deterrent?

I am reading a book called Son of Hamas, a memoir written by a Palestinian who worked as an informant for the Israeli secret service. The author, Mosab Hassan Yousef, declares at the beginning of the book that he is going to ‘disclose secrets that have never been known before’.

One of these secrets, delightfully enough, involves the Israel Defence Force’s rather unusual approach towards guarding bases on the West Bank. Rather than deploying highly trained Dobermans or Alsatians, the IDF uses pigs — yes, pigs — to patrol the perimeter fence. The reason for this, as Mosab puts it, is that ‘the presence of pigs and the threat of possible contact with them would serve as a psychological deterrent to any prospective terrorist who was a devout muslim’.

He doesn’t elaborate further, but one would assume that rather than attempting to train these pigs to become aggressive killers — which, as every Englishman knows, is contrary to the nature of the pig — the Israeli special forces would employ a strategy of encouraging their friendlier side. After all, what could be more off-putting to a would-be suicide bomber than the sight of an affectionate, doe-eyed porker ambling good-naturedly towards him?

Just another example of the surreal nature of life on the West Bank.

Will a heavenly messenger show you a word cloud of your actions?

This morning I stumbled upon my profile at www.journalisted.com, an uncannily all-seeing website which is a bit like an OCD God with an obsession for journos. An interesting feature of the site is the ‘wordcloud’, which collects a journalist’s oft-used words and arranges them in a little box. Each word is sized in dependance upon its frequency (so ’limpid’, for example, would probably be rather small, unless you were writing a piece about whether you can see the bottom in Hampshire rivers). I can imagine that in this day and age, when you die and arrive at the pearly gates, a heavenly messenger will produce for you a word cloud of your actions in this life (together with links to people who have acted similarly, who you will be able to recommend and share). You would then be either spam-filtered or bookmarked, depending on the result.

Anyway, so on my profile I was a little surprised at how many of the words were Jewish-related. I suppose I’ve written a few pieces on the subject. In the word cloud, ‘Jewish’, ‘Jews’ and ‘Judaism’ feature in — as Larry David might say — ‘pretty, pretty’ large fonts.

But I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself at the inclusion of a word which, at first glance, appeared anomalous, but then made perfect sense. You know the old joke, ‘ten Jews, eleven opinions’? The word was this: ‘arguments’. In the plural.

'Just having things ‘normalised’ can be a relief'

With some difficulty, I manoeuvre my extra-long double buggy — dubbed “the gondola” — into a room cluttered with plastic toys. The psychotherapist gets up from her beanbag to help me to fold it up. I introduce her to Isaac and Imogen, my seven-month-old twins, and then put them down on the mat. The babies, blissfully unaware of the therapist’s eyes, proceed to give the toys a good gumming. Read the rest of this entry »

'Bibi may have changed'

News is breaking this morning that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has caved in to US pressure. Sources report that he has tacitly agreed a freeze on the controversial plans to build several hundred new Jewish homes in Ramat Shlomo, East Jerusalem. This shows a flicker of hope. Not only does it — tentatively — bode well for renewed peace talks with the Palestinians, it also shows that Bibi may have changed. Or at least, he has learned from past mistakes.

In 1996, when Netanyahu was last in office, Bill Clinton faced him down on a similar issue. Netanyahu, through evasive political maneuvering, sought to both placate and defy the US administration. The result was disastrous for the Israeli leader; at the first opportunity, the Israeli public voted him out of office, citing his handling of US relations as their primary motivation.

This time round, history has repeated itself — but thankfully, only up to a point. Netanyahu, in moving towards a compromise with the Americans that will enable forward movement, has shown that at last his traditional belligerence has been tempered by pragmatism.

Nothing is ever certain in the middle east. Tomorrow’s news may demonstrate that Bibi has changed his mind, and re-authorised the settlement construction in the face of US pressure. But today, at least, it seems that we’re looking at a new Bibi. And we can warm our hands around a small — and increasingly rare — flame of hope.

NB: The reports on which this blog post was based later proved premature. Netanyahu did not, in fact, cave in; he simply offered a temporary freeze on construction, which did not satisfy Washington. For Netanyahu to drop the building plans completely would have put him in extremely hot water with members of his coalition back in Israel. Subsequently, the Israeli premier stated that ‘construction in Jerusalem is like construction in Tel Aviv and we have clarified that for the American government’. So the story rumbles on. >sigh< –JWS

'the muffled drums of war have been gathering volume for some time'

“Netanyahu thinks he is the superpower,” remarked Bill Clinton bitterly in 1996, “and we are here to do whatever he requires.” Today, as the Americans and the Israelis refuse to budge on the fraught issue of settlements in East Jerusalem, this statement rings truer than ever. US-Israeli relations are at a historic low. But the current standoff is about much more than settlement-building. Underlying it is Washington’s concern that Netanyahu’s repeated gestures of provocation—like the establishment of Jewish heritage sites in the Palestinian territories—are drawing the region towards a conflict unprecedented since 1948. And this time there is a nuclear dimension.

Read the rest of this entry »