Are Christians masochists?

There must be something about Christians that embraces masochism because my last month or two have been awful and yet I feel full of joy and not in the least despondent. Perhaps that is what we crave as Christians – tests of our faith (as long as they’re not too painful). Perhaps the joy stems from the fact that we are able to rationalise events and know that misfortunes in life can be one of three things i.e. the usual roll of the dice that exists when humans are given freewill and left to their own devices, an indication that something in our lives requires changing or simply that whatever happens in our lives we know it is for the best.

My misfortune began in April when the tachycardia I suffer from (diagnosed as Supraventricular tachycardia, although I have always called it palpitations) became rampant. I’m not sure if I have ever mentioned it before in a blog but it is a condition I suffered from for the first 27 years of my life and never bothered to tell anyone as it was my normality. The attacks became less and less frequent then suddenly disappeared and became a distant memory. Initially the attacks could last up to two or three hours but eventually I learned tricks to shorten the duration. If I were in the classroom I would simply raise my hand to be excused and then go to the toilet and lie down on the cold concrete floor in the cubicle, away from prying eyes. This would invariably shock it back to its normal loop and I always had this overwhelming feeling of relief and joy when it was over. It was annoying to say the least, particularly when playing sport. Although I won the annual school cross-country on a couple of occasions I also remember having an attack while running the county and walking over the line in 168^th position. My reputation was one of winning or dropping out. And why didn’t I tell anyone – because kids do not like to be different. Actually I did tell one person, a school friend, Peter Cowley who told me once that he suffered from the same complaint so I felt safe to tell him of mine. I hope Peter is OK as I haven’t seen him for many years and he is one of few who hasn’t turned up to school reunions.

After almost 30 years I began to suffer them again a couple of years ago. The heart specialist, Mr Sneddon, offered me an ablation operation (where they stick a wire up through a vein in the groin and zap the piece of gristle on the heart) but I didn’t fancy it as I only had attacks two or three times a month. However in April I began cycling again after a winter completing my latest book and I began to have attacks on every ride and then for the first time in my life I had more than one attack on the same day (I had convinced myself this was impossible), in fact I had four attacks whilst out on my Sunday club ride with the Crawley Wheelers, the last after winning the sprint for the line to complete the ride. The next day I had six attacks during a three hour ride and then decided enough was enough so have made another appointment to see the specialist as I realise it is not getting any better and is definitely going to have to be sorted as I do miss my cycling.

I began a pop culture book in 2004 and it has finally (well almost) been completed and for the first time I do not yet have a publisher for it. My works are usually commissioned but I went out on a limb this time as I took it for granted that my publisher would take it on. Alas, I offered it to them last week and they have not taken up the option. It was a bit of a shock to say the least as I know it is my best work to-date and they seem to agree judging by their glowing report but perhaps it merely says something about the present climate. I must admit I probably didn’t help my cause by asking for a transfer to another publisher two years ago but that move was thwarted by them as they asked too much for my backlog. One might think this was a strange move by them but to be honest I have an excellent relationship with everyone at Little, Brown and do not think for one moment their decision is a reaction to my request. My motive was only to team up again with the No 1 man in publishing, the man who gave me my first break in 1998, Alan Samson, now at Orion. I have never spoken to any other publisher (it is now on record) although now I will have to next week.

The thing is I look at these setbacks for what they are. I am fit and healthy and off the bike I do not suffer from ill health (hardly ever get the super-fast heart when walking around) and I have actually enjoyed doing other things instead of having to spend all my free time in a constant state of breathlessness through running or cycling. As for the publisher’s decision - I have never had a lack of confidence in my ability to do what I do well so I just feel sorry that someone there has made the wrong decision as I know this book will do well – and if it was never to get published so what. I know so many excellent writers who have never had the opportunity to ever be published because of someone in their ivory tower did not want to take a chance on them. How lucky have I been.

It is always the times when things are not going supremely well that defines us as human beings and as Christians doubly so. I spent most of my life feeling very undeserving of God’s love (still do if I’m honest) as I had so many vices, and it wasn’t until I realised that God loves us all and my vices were not only hurting me but also hurting Him (this is the nature of sin) that I could rationalise things and try to change them.

So now I am looking forward to a period of soul searching (and publisher searching) and it excites me. I love new challenges and putting things on the line. It is my nature to always bounce back from any misfortune (not that I consider either my job or health issue a misfortune on the grand scale of things – far from it). It shows a certain arrogance of spirit for me to even mention such trivial things but if it helps a solitary person to understand themselves better then so be it.

The World Has Gone Mad

So I read in this morning’s Telegraph that ‘Kenneth Clarke was forced to apologise yesterday after suggesting that not all rapes were serious’. The paper then goes on to say that Mr Clarke actually said that some rapes were not as serious as others.

What he actually said is something quite different and the paraphrasing used by media sources is the scourge of twenty-first-century-living.

I ask those right-minded citizens out there to read what Mr Clarke actually said and then try and understand that he was merely stating existing fact, nothing more. He doesn’t deserve being vilified for making the observation that some rapes are worse than others. That is evident by the huge sentencing differences. What is the fuss all about?

Certainly not anything Mr Clarke said. Any informed speaker on the subject would have said the same…..surely! or indeed perhaps not in this age of political correctness gone mad.

I have been on various media courses at the behest of my publisher to ensure that when I give interviews I say the right things and give the right signals. Truth doesn’t come into it anymore. The exercise is not to give the media any bait to get their fangs into.

The truth is what I read today is something I have heard and seen discussed in exactly the same way innumerable times both on television and radio. The discussion in the past though has always been about sentencing policy and the act of rape itself but now it seems that it sells more papers to shoot the messenger. I have seriously been considering not reading newspapers or watching television anymore. I am sick to death of the likes of Max Clifford pimping off people’s grief. I am sick to death of reading columns by people like Kelvin Mackenzie pontificating in their holier than thou manner when the truth is these people are media prostitutes – believe me I have had dealings with them!

And for those who don’t know me I am a socialist so have little in common with Tory politicians but am fed up with the truth being bent and twisted to evoke sensationalism. It is bullying plain and simple and until we resolve the problem we as a human race will begin to slip further and further into this dark abyss where truth means nothing and only bland statements will be declared for fear of reprisals.

Do any of you remember those very plausible insurance salesmen that used to come to your home promising they could double your money within ten years only for you to find you would have been better off placing your money under the bed. These media spin merchants are of the same ilk only far far worse - as they KNOW they are misleading you.

I was with Max Clifford the day Fulham legend Johnny Haynes died and his phone didn’t stop ringing. He was telling all and sundry that he was a life-long fan of the great man. In between calls over a sticky bun and a cuppa I questioned him a little about Johnny and it was clear he didn’t have a scooby doo. He deals in illusion you see.

Kelvin Mackenzie jumps on every bandwagon that passes him and yet he is someone known within closed circles to be the most politically incorrect person imaginable. I once did a job for his radio station but my payment did not arrive and when I rang up, and bear in mind I had never spoken to the man before, I was more than a little shocked to have him enter into a one-sided tirade of verbal abuse like you could not possibly imagine. I did not utter a word but was told to “go f--- myself” among other pleasantries. This is the common currency of Mr Mackenzie and yet he is employed like so many of his ilk to act as paragons of virtue when it suits them and to incite the masses when sales need boosting. Truth means nothing nowadays.

Mr Clarke was most eloquent in his words. It is such a terribly difficult crime to legislate against. How many times have we been frustrated when watching television programmes on the subject of rape where justice didn’t appear to be done because the police either advised victims a conviction would be difficult or else at trial a judge found insufficient evidence. How many times too have we heard in our own small lives of people being raped. I know several people who have told me about their rapes and none of them went to the law. The whole subject of rape needs looking at closely. Most men do not understand the intricate nature of rape because they find it too abhorent to contemplate. We understand the violence of course and in fact we always tend to cry out for maximum sentences because of the physical violence aspect - but we cannot comprehend the mental turmoil, the fear, the actual violation. Only another woman can really understand that, which is probably why when someone cries rape falsely women tend to be much less tolerant and forgiving towards a false litigant as they do a disservice to real claimants.

Consent itself has always been the sticking point in so many cases. I sat and watched a case once where I felt sure the defendant was guilty but it turned out to be his word against hers and no conviction followed because of the strict code the jury was instructed to adhere to. To try and simplify rape as acrosss the board rape too is dangerous. Mr Clarke gave the example of a 17 year old sleeping with a 15 year old. Now I don’t think for one moment he gave this as an example rather than say a 30-year-old man or whatever, he was surely making the point that two immature children do immature irresponsible things. I know several schoolfriends of mine that slept with girls before they were 16. Although I wouldn’t say it was the norm I have to say it happened even in the 1960s and 1970s. I know one close friend of mine that was caught in bed by the mother of a 15-year-old and although she read him the riot act he was not convicted of anything, and yes he was 17 (and no it wasn’t me, I did not lose my virginity until many years later).

It is rightly an emotive subject. Most right-minded people feel that convicted rapists beyond a shadow of a doubt, of the type that Kenneth Clarke describes as those that merely choose their victim from the street, deserve some sort of castration, while perhaps those that come under the heading of statutory rape deserve a lesser sentence dependent on the circumstances.

I have no political sympathy for Kenneth Clarke but I do believe that if we condone his sacking for merely giving his expert analysis as a lawyer and politician, then we will find ourselves up a very sticky gum tree where we will be the castrated ones as a nation. Policy will be impossible to be formed as we will always be upsetting some minority with a voice. To give you a final example of the sort of thing that can happen. Two years ago I asked to be removed from the emailing list of my local Labour Party as I was very upset to be called homophobic by one of the other group. What had happened was that our local chairman asked us to picket a meeting of the BNP in Crawley and I replied rather irritatingly that I feel that we should concentrate on our own party and not be drawn into slagging off others. Well all hell broke loose and several members of the group sent me private email telling me how the BNP had made it personal by ringing them up anonymously and heavy breathing and all sorts of skulduggery. My thoughts were how could this possibly happen unless you continue to incite conflict but I understood their feelings. What I didn’t understand was the one chap who replied to the group that he was so upset because I was clearly condoning the BNP who were anti-gay and so I must be homophobic!! What the poor chap didn’t know was that I lobbied for a dear gay friend of mine to become my local Bewbush Councillor only a month prior to this and indeed he got in after I broke custom by speaking on his behalf before the vote.

You see it should always be about the best man for the job irrespective of nepotism.

Last year the same man was up as the Labour Party candidate to fight the general election and I actually voted against him this time as I felt there was a better candidate for the job. My friend rang me and we had a frank discussion about it and he totally understood. It was the hardest thing I have done for years but I simply could not vote for him merely because he was a friend, and his boyfriend was a friend and the son of a special friend of mine. I’d rather feel guilty of upsetting a friend than standing accused of nepotism.

No I am not trying to be holier than thou. I too have my moments which is why I understand the danger of nepotism and not making rational decisions. I used to quite like Chris Tarrant but immediately went off him when I felt he stitched me up like a kipper on WWTBAM. Now quite illogically when I hear him on the radio I find myself not well disposed towards him. I say illogically because I have never been one to either harbour grudges or understand why grudges are harboured. Words said in anger are often masking deep rooted feelings of love and should never cause terminal rifts - but sadly so often do.

It is hard enough being a fickle human being anyway but to put more temptations in our path, more reasons to show our gang mentality, more reason for us to become institutionalised neutered bullies, never giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Once I became a Christian I lost a certain amount of my ego. I no longer felt I needed to be loved by human beings. I did feel I wanted to understand them and I certainly still hated it when I was misunderstood but I no longer felt inadequate, rather I was resigned to the fact that we are all fickle and liable to make irrational decisions from time to time. Few people deserve hate per se. Comment, of course, pity even but serious hate should only be reserved for those that cannot rise above personal tragedy - for instance many of the victims of rape I discussed above. I know that hate destroys the soul and essence of a human being. How many of us know people who have been totally devastated by grief. But even within a Christian community it would be difficult to get across an argument for forgiving the perpetrator of a heinous crime like rape and yet many who have been able to do so have lived much fuller lives. Closure is often easier when you are in control.

These are the sort of questions I would like to concentrate on, the wellbeing of the victims, not a politician who was merely stating the obvious.

Nepotism - the scourge of the ruling classes!

I hereby call for the resignations of both David Cameron and Nick Clegg on the grounds of nepotism, the scourge of human frailty and my own particular bête noire.

By coming out in defence of David Laws, who was found guilty of using taxpayers’ money to pay his boyfriend more than £100,000, our two chief politicians have shown they cannot be trusted to adhere to consistent logical procedures implemented to ensure the public can have total faith in our elected Members of Parliament.

And before anyone accuses me of being biased, I can declare that I resigned from the Labout Party earlier this year in protest at the nepotism shown last year when electing our Labour Party candidate to fight the General Election.

I understand this human frailty only too well. We are all guilty of it. As soon as we first speak to a total stranger on a bus we are more prone to favour that person over any other passenger – It is the way humans are wired and may appear quite harmless but in actual fact this tendency is responsible for more of the world’s ills than any plague we have ever dealt with.

It might seem good to place people that one can trust in positions of authority. The problem is that vested interests creep in and ‘blind eyes’ are turned often resulting in tragedy. I do not jest when I say that none of the world’s dictators would have existed but for nepotism. What was the first thing that Stalin did before implementing his own will on the Russian people? He launched a massive purge against his native enemies and either had them executed or imprisoned in Siberian gulags. How did Hitler manage to persuade the German people that cultural hegemony was a sound and worthy cause? His first action was to have a massive purge against his native enemies (the original one in 1934 known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives’). And what of Trujillo – massive purge of native enemies by systematic killings and expanded this to indiscriminate killing of Haitians that shared the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. This was known as the Parsley Massacre. And Chairman Mao – massive purge of native enemies and had them horrifically tortured in very graphic circumstances; Saddam Hussein (massive purge of native enemies, mainly Kurds, in the so-called Al-Anfal campaign of genocide). In every case these purges were supplemented by the dictators strategically placing their own choices in the top government positions.

Even with the apparently good regimes such as Kennedy’s ‘Camelot’ the nepotism almost plunged the world into nuclear war because in truth many of JFK’s advisors were not worthy of the positions held.

A form of nepotism got OJ Simpson a reprieve from murder and his current 33 year sentence for armed robbery probably vindicates that assessment. The old pal’s act, money buys anything, if your face fit – call it what you will, but unless the general public has faith in government then we will always be in recession! 

David Laws might be a most affable good-hearted chap but he clearly cannot be allowed to serve in Government because he is tarnished. He might well be totally trustworthy but it is the perception that is all important here and unfortunately he should have thought about the bigger picture. Normally I would love the idea of loyalty to a friend but in asking for clemency for David Laws both David Cameron and Nick Clegg don’t seem to understand that rules are made for a reason and cannot be compromised on a whim or else the fabric of society breaks down. David Laws is an intelligent quick-witted man and will do well in any job he takes on but unfortunately he has burnt his bridges in politics for me.