Monday, July 21, 2008
Back from the other island
Now back from the other island, the Isle of Wight that is, where we have now spent 7 of the last eight summer holidays. Escaped to Wales last year but the pull of the old was too great. Two dreams of interest.
BH woke up on the middle Sunday having dreamt about writing a stiff letter to the Isle of Wight council. Lots of dogs on the beaches, despite lots of signs saying that they were forbidden during the summer. Diggers on the beach, especially on Saturday. That is to say a large yellow JCB charging about, moving sand from one place to another, on the first fine day for a while. Diggers on the road in Lake on Saturday, doing something fairly routine. Do they really need the overtime that bad that they have to bung up the only road down the east coast of the island while they patch a small hole in the pavement? Then having a sign calling the battery at Puckpool a mortar battery when one would clearly not use mortars for coastal defence (and when the very inaccurate old poster in the ‘Boat House’ gents shows guns which, despite the inaccuracies, are clearly not mortars). Plus a number of other things we can no longer call to mind. We have clearly reached the age of complaint rather than the university of the third age.
Curious waking dream of my own on the morning of departure. Arrived somewhere with BH and luggage, perhaps off a boat. For some reason need to get back to Elizabeth Street in Victoria (where I used to live, many years ago, when a student). Took a taxi. Taxi seemed to have no idea how to get to the street and my geography of the bit of London we seemed to be in not too hot. Turned down a very narrow alley, the end of which turned out to be blocked by some complicated assembly of cranes, concrete lorries and what not. Concrete being poured. Tried to reverse out by which time the entry similarly blocked. The blockage clears. Reverse out past a green van. Go on some long detour. Find ourself in a small square – at least an opening, with benches and trees, very Parisien (Parisienne?) but not square. Park next to shop while the driver goes in search of directions. Think about doing a runner but remember in time that we have lots of luggage in the boot. Wife goes into the shop, which has a sale on, in search of bargains. I have the idea that the shop is owned by the taxi driver’s wife. Wake up. Was it a racialist thought crime that the driver was a small brown man, from India or Pakistan?
Got back to an email about crime. Or more specifically about a sherrif (or is it sheriff?) in Arizona who believes in making prisons hurt. He runs what sound like very unpleasant ones and his constituents love it. Re-elect him every time. He is clearly feeding the desire for revenge on the bad guys. But I wonder if it really works? Are his rates of reoffending any better than anyone else's? I suppose it would be a result if his offenders simply go somewhere else to offend on release. What is the level of violence inside his prisons like? I would have thought that banging up a lot of young violent people without diversion and with excessive heat (during the summer days) would lead to a fair amount of violence between prisoners. Is this going to make them better people? Is it decent to keep other humans, however unpleasnt, in such conditions? Is it decent to encourage and feed rather ugly pleasure in revenge? I am reminded of the people who used to guzzle sizzle burgers outside prisons at the moment when someone was electrocuted. The bottom line is that I am rather dubious about the whole venture.
More prosaically, we are puzzled by the constitutional status of the island. It has a council which appears to function as a county council but does not call itself such. It has a number of subordinate units called parishes and towns, rather like the very old-speak urban district councils, rural district councils and parishes. Being not terribly big, is it linked up with Hampshire for various purposes? There is a page on their web site called 'what is a council?' but it is agnostic on this particular question. Maybe it really is an anomaly in the almost seamless, post 1974 reorganisation web of counties, along with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. I remember the 1974 reorganisation because at about that time we went to a lot of bother to build fancy gadgets into the population statistics systems to accommodate any future reoganisation without sweat. Which turned out to be a splendid case of bolting the statistical door after the horse had bolted.
BH woke up on the middle Sunday having dreamt about writing a stiff letter to the Isle of Wight council. Lots of dogs on the beaches, despite lots of signs saying that they were forbidden during the summer. Diggers on the beach, especially on Saturday. That is to say a large yellow JCB charging about, moving sand from one place to another, on the first fine day for a while. Diggers on the road in Lake on Saturday, doing something fairly routine. Do they really need the overtime that bad that they have to bung up the only road down the east coast of the island while they patch a small hole in the pavement? Then having a sign calling the battery at Puckpool a mortar battery when one would clearly not use mortars for coastal defence (and when the very inaccurate old poster in the ‘Boat House’ gents shows guns which, despite the inaccuracies, are clearly not mortars). Plus a number of other things we can no longer call to mind. We have clearly reached the age of complaint rather than the university of the third age.
Curious waking dream of my own on the morning of departure. Arrived somewhere with BH and luggage, perhaps off a boat. For some reason need to get back to Elizabeth Street in Victoria (where I used to live, many years ago, when a student). Took a taxi. Taxi seemed to have no idea how to get to the street and my geography of the bit of London we seemed to be in not too hot. Turned down a very narrow alley, the end of which turned out to be blocked by some complicated assembly of cranes, concrete lorries and what not. Concrete being poured. Tried to reverse out by which time the entry similarly blocked. The blockage clears. Reverse out past a green van. Go on some long detour. Find ourself in a small square – at least an opening, with benches and trees, very Parisien (Parisienne?) but not square. Park next to shop while the driver goes in search of directions. Think about doing a runner but remember in time that we have lots of luggage in the boot. Wife goes into the shop, which has a sale on, in search of bargains. I have the idea that the shop is owned by the taxi driver’s wife. Wake up. Was it a racialist thought crime that the driver was a small brown man, from India or Pakistan?
Got back to an email about crime. Or more specifically about a sherrif (or is it sheriff?) in Arizona who believes in making prisons hurt. He runs what sound like very unpleasant ones and his constituents love it. Re-elect him every time. He is clearly feeding the desire for revenge on the bad guys. But I wonder if it really works? Are his rates of reoffending any better than anyone else's? I suppose it would be a result if his offenders simply go somewhere else to offend on release. What is the level of violence inside his prisons like? I would have thought that banging up a lot of young violent people without diversion and with excessive heat (during the summer days) would lead to a fair amount of violence between prisoners. Is this going to make them better people? Is it decent to keep other humans, however unpleasnt, in such conditions? Is it decent to encourage and feed rather ugly pleasure in revenge? I am reminded of the people who used to guzzle sizzle burgers outside prisons at the moment when someone was electrocuted. The bottom line is that I am rather dubious about the whole venture.
More prosaically, we are puzzled by the constitutional status of the island. It has a council which appears to function as a county council but does not call itself such. It has a number of subordinate units called parishes and towns, rather like the very old-speak urban district councils, rural district councils and parishes. Being not terribly big, is it linked up with Hampshire for various purposes? There is a page on their web site called 'what is a council?' but it is agnostic on this particular question. Maybe it really is an anomaly in the almost seamless, post 1974 reorganisation web of counties, along with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. I remember the 1974 reorganisation because at about that time we went to a lot of bother to build fancy gadgets into the population statistics systems to accommodate any future reoganisation without sweat. Which turned out to be a splendid case of bolting the statistical door after the horse had bolted.
# posted by Jim @ 10:33 PM 
