The Divine Comedy

What is Hell? No, I'm not talking about being forced to watch five hours of Comic Relief. I ask, because despite being a devout lapsed Catholic, I believe I have visited it's latest incarnation. On Sunday, I descended into that fiery pit of despair and like Dante in the Divine Comedy, I witnessed the three realms of the inferno. We all have a little voice that we can listen to or choose to ignore. Unfortunately, I have three other little voices, age ten, nine and four and I allowed myself to be swayed by seemingly innocent cries of 'it'll be fun'. I know from experience that these things are never fun. So unlike Dante, who was guided through the wasteland by the benign ancient poet, Virgil; the horror of my experience was heightened because it was instigated by my 'how bad can it be' wife and three children, 'the miserable pleaders'*.

In the Christian tradition, hell, of course, is home to that most charismatic of figures, Satan. It is the terrible place where our soul pays for our sins. A place of punishment for those not found worthy of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. In hell, our immortal souls are separated for eternity from God and live in perpetual torment. Whether we believe or not, Hell is a subject that has fascinated some of our greatest thinkers over the centuries, had the power to restrain some of the most powerful and ruthless figures in history and inspired some of mankind's greatest works of art and philosophy. In many ways, the Enlightenment was man's attempt to escape the fires of hell.

Have we succeeded? If the the Enlightenment was an attempt to emancipate mankind from the arbitrary chains of faith, then Western Europe has been freed. Despite the lingering influence of religion, our lives are largely governed by the principles of political and economic liberalism developed during what became known as the age of Age of Reason. Yet sometimes, I can't help feeling that the great thinkers like Locke, Rousseau or Kant would be horrified by what our self-determination has created. If they had foreseen where man's emancipation would lead would they have put down their quills, backed out of the room and vowed to lead more frivolous less useful lives? But, to be fair, not even Adam Smith, the founder of modern economic theory and the most prescient of it's critics could have foreseen the horrors of Jimmy Spices.

Jimmy Spices is a restaurant chain that started in the West Midlands in 2003. So successfully has it led people into temptation that it's dark powers are now spreading through the South of England. The website claims that:

'Jimmy Spice's is the ultimate destination for food lovers keen to sample some of the world's finest cuisines. Our renowned restaurants are pioneering Multi Cuisine dining, with a sumptuous range of Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese dishes served up freshly every day. As it's Multi Cuisine, you can go back and try a different cuisine! It's a revolutionary concept that will dazzle the intrepid diner. Enjoy a vast array of authentic cuisine from India, Thailand, China and Italy all served in a massive open plan restaurant. As it's a Multi Cuisine offering, you can eat as much as you like! Simply choose from the dishes on display and the chefs will immediately cook your meal in front of you.' 

If the concept sounds appalling then the experience is much worse. They reassure you with a relatively calm and spacious bar area, but as I was led into the main restaurant I immediately sensed an unnatural sterility. This place had no soul. Perhaps it was the photos from around the world, as if the UN had gone into interior design using pictures found in disaster zones. It was a true democracy, irrespective of the food on offer every nation was represented. Lacking context, the photos had lost any quality they once  had. The people in the images, stripped of their dignity, stared back at me, like refugees behind the the bars of the frames, waiting to be processed...but, it wasn't them being processed, it was me.

When is The Who's 'My Generation' ever appropriate for a relaxing lunch? The thumping bass driving inexorably into the classic refrain of 'hope I die before I get old' made me consider whether Pete Townsend had been an early customer? But the incessant beat was really a necessary device to get you into the appropriate state of mind to 'tolerate' the restaurant. The sound and energy of The Who was a perfect way to synchronise expectations with the reality of the restaurant. It was like setting my sensibilities to 'fraught.' Which was just as well for what awaited me.

'Food lovers', 'finest cuisines', 'dishes served up freshly', 'authentic cuisine' 'chefs will immediately cook your meal for you'. As we sat down, I absorbed the scene around me. More reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych 'Garden of Earthly Delights' than anything I have ever experienced, including a Stooges gig in New York that had been a mixture of orgy and riot, I felt like Edward Woodward at the end of the 'Whicker Man' as all the pieces fall into place - 'pioneering', 'can go back and try a different cuisine!',  'intrepid diner', 'a vast array of authentic cuisine', ' massive open plan,' 'eat as much as you like!'...'eat as much as you like!'...'eat as much as you like!' EAT AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE!'. 

Something I have noticed in rich countries is the more that is on offer, the worse the behaviour. Buffets, in my experience, seem to bring out some particularly unattractive qualities. What I saw was a scrum of three hundred or so people battling over a selection of pre-cooked items. There is freshly cooked food available, but frankly if everyone had wanted that food we would still be waiting. Barely anyone, in fact, could be bothered to wait and instead there was a lot of barging, pushing and grabbing. Greedy and desperate not to miss out on anything quickly available, people from around the world, loaded the smallish plates, carefully judged to limit the amount each customer could carry, with as much food as possible.

Hell? Is that too strong a description? Gluttony, avarice, greed, sloth, envy, wrath and even lust were in evidence. And the food? It is now accepted that there are really only five types of taste: bitter, salty, sour, sweet, and umami (mono sodium glutamate). Jimmy Spices has the sort of food that appealed to these primal urges in such a basic way that it removed any pleasure from the experience of eating. It was culinary titillation. I was informed that the chef's had worked in five star restaurants in their countries of origin, but that doesn't make the food 'authentic'. The freshly cooked food was only marginally better than the rest of the fodder. Good food, no matter what the cost, is about good ingredients, attention to detail and someone giving a damn. I hope the chefs are earning enough to make this experience worthwhile.

I realise it is unfashionable to quote Marx these days, but occasionally, his foresight is still quite remarkable: 

'In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.'

Jimmy Spices is an expression of Marx's cultural homogenisation. In one hit of 'umami' it expresses much of what is wrong with the path our 'self-determination' has taken. What is sold as choice, is really just exploiting some pretty basic and rather unpleasant human traits. It often seems that the ultimate expression of 'reason' has not been the values which those early philosophers struggled to express but rather a process by which we can be persuaded to buy anything.

What is so depressing, in this context, is that food can be such a joyful experience. When done well, it's a chance to learn about our own or different cultures, for talented chefs to show off their skills and produce something unique and create something genuinely joyful. Jimmy Spices, may only be a cheap restaurant chain, but the whole 'concept' is an expression of a greater malaise in our society. It's as if the high salt content in the food sucks all the the humanity out of the room. We don't need a religious hell, we are more than capable of creating our own secular hell on earth.

By the way, the kids loved it.

(*I quote the great Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo)

The Wootton Bassett effect

The Prime Minister has announced that Wootton Bassett is to be given the title 'Royal' in recognition of their honouring of the UK's war dead. The residents of the town have lined the streets to show their respect for the victims as they are driven between RAF Lyneham to John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. Mr Cameron told the Commons, "Their deeply moving and dignified demonstrations of respect and mourning have shown the deep bond between the public and our armed forces." He reported that the Queen had agreed to the tribute as "an enduring symbol of the nation's admiration and our gratitude to the people of that town."

 

The ceremonies began shortly after the military complained the UK did not have a similar reverence for war dead as demonstrated in the USA. What started as a simple tribute by the local British Legion, from one generation of the armed forces to another, grew into a widely observed and slightly more formal event: the lowering of Legion banners, a minute's silence and the tolling of the bells at St Bartholomew’s and All Saints Church.

The most surprising aspect of the proceedings were that they should happen at all in this quintessential Cotswold town. After all this is 'Middle England' and adopting public rituals for what was traditionally a private affair would be more in-keeping with the 'remember the Alamo' patriotism of Texas than Wiltshire. However, there is little doubt that the proceedings came from a sense of respect and sadness for the loss of the servicemen. Indeed, uppermost in the minds of the community was the question of how to maintain the dignity of the occasions as media coverage brought more attention and people to the events. 

Following the repatriation of eight servicemen in July 2009 and the huge crowds that attended, many local people voiced their concern that the tone had changed. In the Times an ex-paratrooper explained, "Local people are staying away, not out of disrespect, but because it’s becoming something else.” It was an opinion echoed by another local who said, “I thought it was a three-ring circus,” she said. “It started as a spontaneous thing, but it’s grown like Topsy, and we’ve lost something . . . it’s become an event, trailed in the news ... almost as if it was advertised. Personally I think some people came just to see it, like grief tourists.”

Adrian Beeby, a local resident and blogger questioned the motives behind the extensive reporting. He noted that the media attention on Wootton Bassett coincided with reporters being given greater freedom to observe how the bodies were dealt with in the war zones:

'the military is allowing reporters greater access to some of its most emotive and solemn moments and suggests that growth in coverage of the repatriation ceremony may well be at the instigation of the military. The question one is forced to ponder is: why? Are the prospects of military budget cuts or possible problems in the Middle East influencing their thinking? Are we seeing the results of a campaign to increase public sympathy for our fighters? Or have the media discovered that demonstrating support for our troops goes down well with their readers and viewers?'  

Meanwhile, amidst the disquiet, local people did their best to maintain the dignity of the original aims. 'Red Fridays', the brainchild of local businessman Brian Pickering, a campaign to encourage shops and people to be dressed in red to draw support for all military personnel was resisted, as a typical response to a local paper illustrated,

"Everybody wants to up the stakes of Wootton Bassett. The present repatriation vigils are for the fallen not active service personnel. Why can't these people leave things as they are. I certainly would not want to see the neutrality of the people of Wootton Bassett compromised." 

Neutrality is a very interesting word and gets to the heart of my concerns. The fact is that amongst the millions of people who campaigned against the recent conflicts, only a few extremists would welcome British deaths. However, the focus on dead 'heroes' by the media and military PR created an atmosphere where criticism of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq became identified with criticism of the soldiers. This is clearly nonsense and it is to the credit of Wootten Bassett that the debate, locally, recognised the thin line they were walking between being used as military propaganda and maintaining a dignified focus on the dead servicemen.

Cameron told the Commons that Wootten Bassett "did not ask for any recognition, they did not ask for any form of preferment." This is not true. The truth is that the townsfolk went further than that and actively said that they did not want to be officially recognised. Wootton Bassett's Mayor, Steve Bucknell, told the press, it was 'not what local people would want, preferring to just honour the dead with no expectation of thanks.' So, ignoring the express wishes of the people of the town - the government and Royal family have pressed ahead with the 'honour'.

Why impose an 'honour'? I think the reason can be seen in the response to Islam4UK's proposed march through Wootten Bassett. Islam4UK, a Muslim anti-war campaign group, proposed to parade empty coffins through the town. Their controversial spokesman, Anjem Choudary, openly accepted that Wootten Bassett was chosen to generate the maximum level of publicity. He pointed out,

"the sad reality of the situation is that if I were to hold it somewhere else it would not have the media attention that it has now. If I am to balance between the sensitivity of having it in Wootton Bassett and the possibility of continuing the quagmire and cycle of death in Afghanistan, then quite honestly I'm going to balance in favour of the latter."

The proposal, the police never received an application to march, generated massive levels of 'outraged' press coverage. All the party leaders condemned Islam4UK. Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary at the time, said he was prepared to ban the march. He told the BBC, "The idea that anyone would stage this kind of demonstration in Wootton Bassett fills me with revulsion. I find it particularly offensive that the town, which has acted in such a moving and dignified way in paying tribute to our troops who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, should be targeted in this manner."

How often do you get a political consensus? The far-right were rubbing their hands with glee. All the parties agreed that freedom of speech for British Muslims was less important than the sensitivities of 'Middle England'. Of course, there are a lot more votes from 'Middle England' than Afghan dead and 'Middle England', 'Worcester Man', 'Mondeo Man' or whatever you want to call him, is the key to electoral success. All the parties recognise this and hence the consensus.

This courting of 'Middle England' inevitably ends with populist moves like 'Royal' Wootton Bassett. Such a contrived vote winner would be laughable if it was not related to the deaths of British troops. Can the Tories and Royal Family sink any lower? Clearly they are both at a low ebb but not since 'Royal' It's A Knockout in 1987, has a PR stunt been so tacky and distasteful.

The 'honour' cheapens and politicises what the ceremonies were about. This was the reason Wootton Bassett residents resisted such a step. But then the reward is not for the town. It's a rather cynical attempt to arrest the flagging support for the the Tories and Royal Family. But, this time, the PR machine has got them playing with fire. At a time when nationalist parties are once again rising in influence, aren't Victorian calls to the flag, the army and dead 'heroes' legitimising other political parties that use those images extensively?

Just as interesting during the Islam4UK debate was the absence of a wider discussion about what the servicemen had died for? It was as if Al Murray's character, the 'Pub Landlord', was suddenly setting the editorial policy for the British media. I wonder what the response to empty coffins carried by 'white' Britons would have been? The 'Wootten Bassett' effect had successfully deflected any talk of why so many British soldiers were and still are dying.

Did those young people make the 'ultimate sacrifice for their country' or were they sacrificed by their country?