2 weeks in Bulgaria

Arrived back in Bucharest Saturday night after a pleasant day visiting Varna whose vast gardens right next both to its centre and the sea offers great opportunities for walking, cycling and swimming to its residents.
The 10 days at Syvlie’s flat at Manaster, Svety Vlas in the southern part of the Black Sea was very enjoyable and relaxing – the flat was cool, very well-appointed with a superb vista of the sea and Nessbr. The complex had a garden and pool which benefitted from a light cooling breeze and the beach was only 3 minutes walk.
The area of Sunny Beach which Svety Vlas adjoins is a bit underwhelming – tackiness of the highest degree. It suffers now from over-development – we had three nights without electricity and vast unfinished blocks stride up the hillside. The Manaster complex was the first on site and is the jewel of the areae - very up-market and adjoining a marina with sleek, glossy and improbably shaped power boats awaiting their mutri mafia owners.
Our first port of call on Sunday 18 July had been Sofia – where we arrived in early afternoon, visited the city art gallery and then discovered that the National Art Gallery across the road had just opened an exhibition of Nikola Tanev’s paintings! So we arrived at Sylvie’s house in a very good mood – and were treated to a great meal. Monday was wandering around old haunts eg the great music shop off Hristov Botev, but discovering that three of the galleries were no more; and Neron closed for some repairs – but Vihra still there at Astry Gallery with a welcome drink and chat. In the evening we had the great pleasure of dinner with Mirela and Dobre at the Architect’s Club.
Tuesday was the day of serious painting visits and purchases – with a visit first to Victoria Gallery and then to one of my favourites at the square near the University library where I bought a Saby Ivanov and a painting which reminded me of Dobre Dobrov by one Veneta Atanossova (who painted pre-war). And at my other favourite gallery - Neron - I bought at last a Stoian Vassilev (along with a charming small one of VK by one Maria Francova). The owner – Ruhmen Manov – presented us with a book he had put together of Kyundstil in the period 1878-1940. This is one of the towns (just west of Sofia near the borders with Serbia and Macedonia) I had momentarily contemplated buying a house a couple of years ago - and Ruhmen's well selected and annotated collection of old postcards gives an excellent sense of its travails and development.
Finally a visit to another gallery friend - Yassen Gallev of Konus Gallery in Khan Asparuh St - to whom I showed my purchases. He focuses on more modern work - but did once give me a helpful list of artists of my favoured period and showed me paintings by one of the great seascape artists, Boris Stefchev one of whose paintings is shown above.

onward march of banks

This will be the last blog for a week or so - since we are off to Bulgaria without the laptop.
I leave with one question - what exactly is the explanation for the continued surge of bank outlets in Romanian towns when the rest of the economy is going to the dogs? I noticed yesterday in my vain search for CD discs (for back up for the new laptop)in the centre of city quite a few shop closure (including the electronics shop I had expected to find my discs in)- and their replacement in a couple of cases by bank branches. Given the damage banks have done to us all, you would have thought it would be the banks which would be disappearing. But no - they seem exempt from the normal laws (inasmuch as there are any) of economics. I assume part of the explanation is the extensive loans they have made eg for cars and houses - and the profits they make from the misery of ordinary people who can no longer afford (if ever they could) the repayments. I don't know what repossession rates are like here - but surely banks suffer too from the declining house prices?
The establishment of responsible banks should be top priority for government - ie the encouragement of old-fashioned bank behaviour. The requirement to publish simple information on their loan policy, loans and profits is a simple starting point - let alone the encouragement of a new legal structure which would return banks to a mutual/community basis. More journalists should cover banking.

death and life

A suicide of a 43 year-old Romanian modern folk singer at 02.00 on 14 July has dominated the television and newspapers here. Madalina Manole enjoyed great success in the 1990s but her popularity lessened after 2003 – coincidentally after the breakup of her first marriage with an older composer. On the face of it, she seemed in recent years fulfilled - with a new husband, a one-year old son and a new villa - but she had lost her public following. She was working on a new album - but she apparently attempted suicide in June. This time, her birthday, she was successful. The brash Romanian media have been quick to supply the other technical details. Her appeal (via text message at 23.00) to her husband to return home; his arrival at 06.00 to find her dead body; use of an incredibly strong Serbian pesticide. She was a Cancer – apparently in such strong need of love.
Thursday’s TV and papers were full of more details. Evening TV was devoted to various studio discussions with friends and colleagues; and replays of her singing. Dispensation was received from the Orthodox Church for some measure of church input to yesterday’s funeral (although not access to the church) in Ploiesti, her native city, which was attended by thousands as she lay in state in an open coffin in an open square in temperatures of 30 plus.
The suicide of Germany’s goalkeeper last autumn seems to have been the catalyst for a long pent-up discussion about depression in that country - although it did not apparently last all that long. The same seems to be happening here.
Anxieties are now being expressed herein Romania about copy-cat suicides. Romania is not a happy country – you can see it in the faces let alone in the road rage I spoke about recently. And no systems are in place to help those in anguish. Even if there were, it is doubtful whether they would be used. The only saving grace is the open discussion which Romania’s open American-style media is happy to encourage.

No society seems able to establish the environment to help the increasing numbers who feel anguish, despair and hopelessness. Clearly statistics are unreliable – problems of shame and reporting - but it seems reasonable to postulate that in any single year at least one third of the citizens of EU countries experience a depressive phase lasting a few months. Tony Blair’s bruiser – Alaister Campbell – came out a few years ago as a manic-depressive and now heads up a voluntary organization to help such people. My sister committed suicide - she left a note in her car at the side of Loch Lomond and her body was never discovered. Noone had been aware of her condition. It emerged afterwards that she had shared her feelings with the GP who had told her to pull hewrself together.
In the mid 1980s I suffered for 3 consecutive Scottish winters from SADness – sensory affective deprivation. In other words the gloom of northern winter conditions was probably the catalyst which kicked me into a loss of self-confidence - after too much energy expended the rest of the year in a regional political career which had no future. It was just like a hibernation – I avoided company and felt useless. I went to a therapist who seemed to specialize in dealing with miserable politicians. I didn’t find this helpful – nor the medication I accepted for a few weeks. My judgement is that I emerged from each phase mainly by forcing myself to get back into routines with people – although my body’s natural rhythms were probably the main factor.
One thing I would say is that, having suffered and overcome, I became a stronger person – appreciating more the joys which life offers. And I am clear that more recognition of the commonality of this condition is necessary to help people understand that they are not alone with their feelings of despair. We all imagine that noone else has ever suffered from these thoughts of uselessness. In those days it was difficult to find material about the condition. Probably the most useful thing I did was to try to identify the catalyst which had pushed me over the edge - and then to try to find the behaviour which could reverse the process.

Trouble in small countries

Many people (including myself) see small countries as hopes for civilisation. One of my blogs summarised the powerful arguments of Leopold Kohr more than 60 years ago on this theme. 20 years ago there was talk of Europe of the Regions. The new conventional wisdom, however, is that the global financial crisis has shown the incapacity of small countries like Iceland. A referendum on whether the Scots people wanted complete independence which the (devolved) nationalist government of Scotland was supposed to hold this year has disappeared from the agenda. Belgium, in the meantime, is tearing itself apart - and showing little sign of the solidarity which is supposed to be one of the EU values.
A new pamphlet by centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, The Devolution Distraction, by Tom Miers savages most of the assumptions and emotional supports of the last 10 years of devolved government which Scotland has enjoyed. The Miers thesis is that Scottish devolution has been ‘a spectacular failure’ on the economy and public services, driven by an obsession with constitutional change. This reflects that ‘Scotland has a political problem, not a constitutional one’.
Gerry Hassan (about whose pamphlets I have written recently) has a good blog on this today.

Miers apparently makes the case with five key points: that the Scottish economy has grown much slower than the rest of the UK since devolution, entrepreneurship is low, health and education underperform in comparison with the rest of the UK and are increasingly losing ground, and public spending higher than UK levels per head (2). The first two are long-term historic trends; the last complex; but the latter two have an uncomfortable truth which needs serious debate.
The conventional devolution class response to the failure Miers argues are two fold. The first is ‘to deny failure altogether’ – the politics and mindset of self-denial. The second is to invoke from failure and lack of results that the answer can be found in the argument that ‘Scotland needs more self-determination’.
Miers writes in ‘The Scotsman’ on this: The history of democracy is full of examples of political elites that do not respond to evidence of decline, however obvious. So what is it with our own political class? What makes Scottish politics so deeply conservative, so hostile to the notion of reform, so defensive about the performance of Scottish institutions
Just before the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, I wrote a Fabian Society pamphlet, ‘The New Scotland’ which explored the potential and limits of devolution. Its argument can be summarised in five points:
1. Labour were driven onto the devolution agenda with the intent of a politics of maintenance and conservation; one of the central paradoxes of devolution was that the party which introduced it would have its one party old state politics slowly undermined;
2. Devolution for all its hopes and rhetoric was always fundamentally about a politics of reinforcing the internal status quo in Scottish society: one characterized by inertia, lack of dynamism and absence of policy innovation;
3. The forces for devolution were marked despite their radical language by a profound sense of conservatism; this combination of radical hope and conservative reality concealed the limited prospects for change under devolution;
4. Democracy has been late coming to Scotland and the main forces of progress: the Liberals in the 19th century and Labour in the 20th century have colluded with and used the professional elites and castes which dominate and disfigure Scottish society; Thatcherism disrupted part of this, but devolution was never intended to fundamentally shift this;
5. Scottish civil society – shorn of all its illusion and romance about itself – has been characterised by a lack of diversity, pluralism and ideas. This raises the question where were and are the original, challenging ideas for devolution going to come from? All of the above coalesced in the mainstream version of pre-devolution which stated that the Parliament was going to be the vehicle of Scottish radical opinion and a body born from the flowering of civil society and thus likely to be a bold, imaginative institution giving expression to progressive imagination. Instead, I argued that this very idea – of the Parliament as the creation of civil society (or even worse, ‘civic Scotland’: the well-mannered, middle class chatterers of institutional opinion) – made it inevitable that the Parliament would be the voice of closed, complacent Scotland. And so it has turned out to be.

Where Miers is on less secure ground is when he comes to solutions. Here he ventures onto predictable ground as he outlines in his conclusion, ‘a new approach’ which entails:
1. The constitution: a generational truce; advocating that we need to stop seeing the solution to Scotland’s problems in some inevitable slippery slope to more powers for the Parliament; instead we should implement Calman and then call a halt for a generation or so;
2. Measurement: a new honesty; challenging our ‘state owned national monopolies’ to stop changing and fiddling figures of measurement;
3. Reform: a new radicalism: declaring that ‘all the parties should seek to recast their policy positions from a foundation of recognition of the problems faced and genuine intellectual curiosity’.

Miers outlines in his conclusion:
The combination of economic and social decline, conservative policy making and endless constitutional debate in Scotland cries out for a new approach. Those who first articulate it persuasively will set the agenda for many years to come.
This is broadly correct as a general description, and also in the opportunity it offers to whichever political force can seize the radical agenda. Where he is wrong is that his ‘new approach’ and radicalism is centred on old solutions: of free market ideas, fragmentation, marketisation and deregulation. It is a view of the world which isn’t ‘evidence based’ as it claims – addressing Scottish failures in comparison to England, but ignoring English problems and pitfalls. It is as if the last few years haven’t happened or the fallout from New Labour approaches.

Following on from my ‘New Scotland’ thesis of over a decade ago here are six points for beginning to explore a more far-reaching, radical, new agenda:

1. Labour’s old style hegemony is as predicted slowly eroding – leaving the party rudderless, directionless and without any sense of anchor – beyond maintaining the rump remnants of its patronage state and its oppositional, opportunist detesting of the Nationalists;

2. Labour, SNP and civic Scotland ideas on economic, social, cultural and political change have shown their commitment to the forces of conservatism and inertia; none of these bodies really has any radical notion of how to deliver change in Scottish society, rather than just presiding over the internal status quo;

3. The forces of the new conservatism – which have critiqued the entire first decade of devolution from beginning to end – advocating a ‘reform’ and ‘modernisation’ strategy – need to be scrutinised and challenged;

4. Equally problematic is the typical centre-left and nationalist response to calls for change – invoking a defensive politics of resistance and public sector institutional conservatism;

5. Mapping a path between these two cul-de-sacs involves embracing the politics of self-determination. Not the constitutional version, but at a societal level, shifting power and challenging elites – both in the public and private sector in Scotland;

6. This self-determination should inform and influence a genuine politics of self-government which can be summarised as post-nationalist Scotland – comfortable with the fuzzy ambiguities and fluidities of shared sovereignty in an interdependent age.

‘The Devolution Distraction’ has done us the service of setting out an analysis of some of the key complacencies and failures of the last decade. It would be wrong to dismiss it out of hand, just because some of it is unpalatable and a little uncomfortable to the gatekeepers and influencers of devo Scotland. Yet at the same time, its message for action is part of the groupthink and orthodoxy which has captured governments, corporates and think-tanks across the West, and in particular the UK and US.
The new conservatism has to be taken on and defeated – not by the forces of old conservatism – which it rightly critiques but the emergence of new voices, ideas and thinking in Scotland. And that requires new spaces and institutions which so far Scottish institutional opinion has shown no interest in supporting and nurturing

. The pamphlet in question can be accessed here.

end of the party

There is an unedifying contest going on at the moment in political Britain - namely which of the ex-New Labour Government Ministers can say the most damning thing about the government of which they were (generally an ignominious) part. In the last few weeks it has been the contenders for the vacant position of Labour leader who have been most vocal in this reinvention and distancing - but, with the serialisation of Peter (Lord) Mandelson's memoirs, we have descended to the pure malicious gossiping we have to expect of this man (sic)
Some of the web comments about the new labour tribe are very pertinent -

The problem encountered by these individuals was 'youth'. Most politicians in the past, with the odd exception, were older, had worked outside politics, been in business or fought in wars. 'Looks' and 'sound bites ' were not as important as they are today. Remember Mandlesons crazed 'I am not a quitter!!' speech? Adolescent. Blair, Brown and Cambell ( he had been writing porn a few years before) all young, with youthful egos , coming into power through a tired government and a media now obsessed with looks, sound bites and gossip. 

Men between the age of twenty and forty actually believe they know best, but they have to prove it to everyone around them, so when they actually have power, paparazzi, chauffeur driven cars and TV cameras hanging on every word, self-importance and personal glory are just too tempting. They, in this little petty environment , are in their minds , the 'story', not events around them. How else would they find time for their memoirs? 

Watching Gove, Clegg and those of a similar age now in power reveals how they have already changed from those humble interviews before the election. Clegg and his Scottish assassin are acting more like Tories than Cameron. Youth and power are a potent heady mix ,but petty mindedness and a search for personal glory are its fruit.

No honour amongst thieves. The political class have lost all legitimacy to rule, they are the worst of characters not fit to rule their own households. Democracy is a giant failure, the God that failed. The political class, make wars on false pretences, they grow rich at home while they send the brave to the front line. Cowards. The French Revolution, Humanist, Democratic extended the power of the State, and handed over power to the Bankers (fiat currency and Fractional Reserve Banking), gave birth to total war, forced conscription made giant armies of millions, and yet the dumbed down people still talk as if party politics matters and left wing and right wing, both do not represent the power elite running and owning the banks.

I'm obviously in masochistic mood as I await for the delivery of the 700 page book written by a journalist Andrew Rawnsley which records (at least from an observer point of view) the nastiness which was the last days of Labour

body checks

More body checks yesterday - but this time, my own body! I've never had the tests older people now take for cancer so decided it was about time to check for prostate and colon. Despite having the results of a comprehensive health check in Germany at Christmas, I was missing some important indices and therefore checked in yesterday for a CT. Left alone under the circulating machine, I felt like a mix of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times and Jane Fonda in Barbarella!
As you look at the Xray pictures, you realise what an incredible thing the human body is - and also begin to appreciate mortality. Significant that, as I was waiting in the cool basement corridor for my turn, I was finishing John Updike's last collection of short stories - My Father's Tears and other stories. By last I do mean the last he wrote before his death - indeed he wrote them in full consciousness that the time of his own demise was not far away and focussing on characters having flashbacks about their early life. I've never been a great fan of Updike's chronicling of the various changes American small-town and middle-class males have experienced since the 1960s - although have admired the erudition of his essays and his knowledge of painting. I was, therefore, quite stunned with the poetic imagery and power of these short stories. William Trevor (Irish) is my favourite for this art form - with Carol Shields (Canada) close behind) and I am enjoying the collection of Dorothy Parker's short stories I bought recently.
In the afternoon visited the Carterusti bookshop and was amazed to come across an (American) hardback edition of Rory Stewart's book on his one year stint as Deputy Governor of one of Iraq's southern provinces during the current occupation. I had read about this unusual guy - a 30 odd year (upper class) Scot who is now Tory MP for Cumbria in the very north of England but who has been a Professor at JFK School of Government in Harvard; and walked from Turkey to Afghanistan - and reckoned the handsome book (the US is so good with their productions of hardbacks!) was not only a rare (and frank) insight into the reality of trying to manage the aftermath of that disastrous invasion but could be a useful insight into the mind of such an individual. The book is called The Prince of the marshes - and other occupational hazards of a year in Iraq.

romanian drivers

Having driven around Europe April-June - through nine countries - (and experienced the habits of caucasian and central asian drivers) I think I am entitled to make some generalisations about driving habits. The combination in Hungary of their strung-out villages and speed limits make driving there very frustrating. People are just too slow and cautious. Across the border - in Romania - you meet the opposite extreme - aggressiveness on a scale I have never encountered and feel is growing. I try to make sense of it culturally - Romania has reinvented itself in a more radical way than its neighbours and its younger generation has made superficial, American worship of money and conspicuous consumption its trademark in a way you don't notice in the rest of central Europe or Balkans. The testosterone level of the Romanian male seems pretty high - and finds strong expression in their cars. They will tailgate you; flash as they approach; dart in and out of lanes; and drive on the opposite side of the road around blind mountain corners. The last trick is becoming even more frequent.
The policy advisers and think-tankers who write so eloquently about nudge and steer in their attempts to ensure policy tools can more relevantly affect social behavious should come to Romania and help create an effective framework to change these driving habits.

good speech

An interesting post from Colin Talbot's blog - key sections of a speech he delivered in Beijing at a Conference on PAR,