Created: 07 Sep 2004
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if I hadn’t spent a lot of it working, drinking, browsing the web or chatting on IRC (and occasionally all four). From time to time, I do remind myself that I do have an reasonably interesting and varied life, even if it doesn’t feel that way when I’m at home, checking for Richard Herring’s latest blog entry every five minutes. Let me reflect, for instance, on the last month; I’ve been windsurfing (twice), to a birthday party in Cheltenham, to a wedding reception in Worcestershire, to another birthday party in Denmead, to a free preview of Ae Fond Kiss, for drinks with colleagues (some of which were free). I’ve also had a pay rise, got to the point where I can write a useful Perl script, realised that I can navigate the Jubilee line with my eyes shut and my ears plugged, managed to very briefly be the fifth best-performing football chairman in a trivial game of football squad selection and still have a wonderful girlfriend and family. I live, in the words of A B Facey, a fortunate life. Sometimes, my own good fortune is only apparent to me when I see horrible things happening in distant places.
Watching the footage from Belsan on Friday I felt ghoulishly fascinated by the confusion and chaos. I had my own views on how the Russian authorities had behaved; a lack of planning, organisation and control. These are justifiable views, but it is too easy to take the attitude that “the SAS would have done it better”. To my knowledge the SAS has never had to free over 1,000 cilivilian hostages from a similar location. I am reminded of something that Michael Moore pointed out when I saw him live: white, affluent westerners are too used to having problems sorted out for them by the authorities. We have lost the art of fending for ourselves and have forgotten what it is like to live in a place where you must take care of yourself and your family.
If you haven’t read A Fortunate Life , by A B Facey, I would recommend it. I was given it by my grandparents (I think) and did not read it for several years because I didn’t like the cover or the blurb. Once it was in my hands, I read it from front to back. A valuable lesson learned, in my early teens, about the deceptiveness of appearances.