Life And The Three Needles

Early August is often when I think about stuff. Having seven weeks off work, and having been on holiday, my brain starts to ponder. Sadly it sometimes makes me write stuff down (some of which even got published a few years back. Thank you Jane).

I had a beer-induced revelation on holiday. It concerns happiness and the meaning of life and I think I managed to develop a monitoring system for life-contentedness. It requires a regular review of your three dials - "needles" if you will (I'd like to believe we're all familiar with the crap voltmeters we used in Science at school - the old analogue ones with needles to indicate the reading).

I'd submit that contentedness requires three things : money, time and health (OK, four if you count "fulfulling personal relationships", but indulge me here).

Now, by "money" I don't mean "shitloads": I mean enough money to do the things you want to do. I think it's a common mistake to try and maximise the money you have, but the problem with that is that in increasing the reading your money-needle, you often lower the reading on your time-needle (not to mention the potential impact on your health of working too hard to earn said money).

No, I think it's important to decide firstly what you want your life to be like, and set about earning enough cash to fulfill it.

In experiencing my beer-induced revelation, I reflected on the stages of adult life and my own recollections of navigating my way through it.

Early years. Perhaps we go to university; perhaps we travel; perhaps we are carefree with little or no responsibility, perhaps we're starting out on our careers in lower paid jobs. Time-needle high, health-needle high but money-needle low. Two out of three ain't bad - it's why we reminisce about our youth and often yearn to be young again. It's also vital that young people capitalise on these years - they may never come again. But - y'know - money. It'd be nice to have more.

Middle years. We might have done well in those early years. We might have got ourselves into better paid jobs; we might now have children. Those better-paid jobs are drawing more of our time - as are our children (if we have them). Hopefully our health-needles are all reading high, and our money needles are getting up towards the top of the scales. But our time-needles are lowering - all that professional stuff is competing with family stuff to ensure that our days and weeks are planned across the year. Little time to stop and admire the view. Jeepers if only we had enough time to relax.

Later years. If we've done well, the money-needle might be maxing out. We might be thinking about retiring or taking a less-stressful job in order to raise the reading on the time-needle. Great. Trouble is, the longer we leave it the greater the chance of the health-needle taking a hit and heading south. We all know folks who have worked hard in order to maximise the money and time, only to find that life slaps you in the face with a health problem that laughs in the face of your cash and spare time. Feck, if only I didn't have that health condition that stops me travelling.

None of this is particularly perceptive or enlightening. So I must have a point, right? Yes, I do.

Life makes it difficult to get all those three needles reading "green" at the same time. I think for most folk, getting a few short years when they are all green is a real challenge, and I think we can all be guilty of failing to recognise if and when it happens. For many of us (if it happens at all) your sixth decade is when it might all come together. Your 50s may well be a golden opportunity to enjoy life when all three needles are in the green - because the chances are, one of 'em won't stay that way.

A few weeks ago, I sat outside the house of friends who live in France drinking beer, talking pish and watching the sun go down. It occurred to me that - here I was, not hugely wealthy but with sufficient time, sufficient money to drive a car to France, and with good enough health to spend eight hours in a car to get there. Needles not necessarily at max - but all green for the first time in many years (possibly ever). Who knows - it may not last; but while it does I'm going to keep checking those dials.

Are your needles all green?

A Toast To Britain's Racists

Let's get one thing straight. Leave voters are not all racists. I cannot stress that enough. I have (a small number of) friends and family members who voted Leave - and racist they ain't.

But a recent article by Matthew Parris (go on, read it) gave me a chill - it crystallised what I had been mentally analysing since the 24th June. That is : Have Britain's racists have decided Britain's future?

Oh come on. Really? Isn't it England's working class railing against the Metropolitan elite ? Years of them being failed by politicians? Protest votes against years of austerity (albeit austerity not directly caused by the EU) ? People with vision and confidence in Britain who see much more opportunity outside the EU?

I need to stress again - not all Leave voters are racist. Many of them know way more about the EU than I do, and many had a clear idea of Britain's future as a world player outside the single market. However, we need to face up to some uncomfortable truths here.

Remember the British Swocial Attitudes Survey in 2014 ? The one that concluded that at least a third of Britons openly identify as holding racist views? That's uncomfortable. Did they all vote in the Referendum? Who knows, but let's make some assumptions.

Assumption 1 : The survey was an accurate reflection of the number of openly-racist people in the UK.

Assumption 2 : Of the thirty million (plus) votes cast, a third of them were people who are openly prepared to state they hold racist views. Let's assume therefore ten million "openly" racists voted, and that it was their racist views that drove their vote.

Assumption 3 : In any "normal" election or referendum, the votes of these individuals will not gravitate to any one option on the ballot paper. They will be evenly spread across the ballot choices. (Unless of course, you're prepared to state Labour/Tory voters are more racist than the other). Of course UKIP votes muddy the waters a bit here, but let's continue.

Assumption 4 : The vast majority of these individuals voted "Leave".

If these assumptions are correct (and I accept they are open to challenge) it leads to a very uncomfortable conclusion. That is (to continue David Cameron's nautical analogies) that Britain now has an openly racist hand on the tiller. How so?

The "ten million racists" - if we imagine a "normal" scenario whereby their votes would have been evenly spread across the ballot options (thus nullifying their overall influence) - we need to re-assign five million votes from "Leave" to "Remain".  That makes for stark reading:

"Leave" : 12.5 million votes and "Remain": 21 million votes.

Ludicrously simplistic? Of course. Who's a racist and who isn't ? Indeed. However, in the days following the result, I had personal experience of Leave voters who - when asked about their reasons - replied "too many Romanian beggars on the streets". No other answer provided.

And that, dear reader, is racist.

So the question is this : was there a significant group of voters who voted Leave purely out of racist motivation?

You may think no. Excellent: sleep well. However, you may think yes. If so, how big was that group? It only needs to be around four million for the result to have been effectively skewed.

I was on the losing side in 2014's Scottish Independence referendum, but I accepted it. I accepted that the argument had not been made and that a clear majority of Scots believed (with the best of intentions) that Scotland's best future lay within the UK.

But the EU referendum feels horribly different. Some empirical evidence, coupled with some flimsy methodology, anecdotal evidence and personal experience leaves me unable to answer "no". I think it was yes, and I think it was statistically significant. I think the "actual" result was much, much tighter and that naked, racist opinion had the casting vote.

So, congratulations "Leave". You fought a winning campaign. But you need to be honest and recognise that your economic argument utterly tanked. You managed to corner the racist market. As you lead us into an economic and cultural dark alley, please raise a glass and toast Britain's racists.

You couldn't have done it without 'em.