PC 384 The Man In The Window

When you live in an urban environment it’s pretty certain you will have a view of your neighbours. East across Albany Villas from us is No 17 and to the left of the front door is an apartment.

In its right-hand window, its occupier has his desk in the bay. He obviously works from home and, whilst we’re not in the habit of staring, curiosity informs us roughly of his daily habits. We have no idea what he does but think he might be a day-trader; always there, regular as clockwork. Whilst we can see in a little …..

          ……. I am not sure whether he can see into our living room as the windows in Amber House have a sheen that provides some privacy. Maybe I should ask him? The room he could look into is our ‘living’ room in the true sense of the word; it’s roughly 5 metres by13 metres and here we cook, eat, work and relax ie ‘live’!

That’s our living room to the left of the front door

Would it matter if he did?

          Our Monday – Friday routine sees us leaving the apartment for yoga at 0915, to walk up to the bus stop. We sometimes lift a hand in acknowledgement as we see his face at the window and aren’t concerned that he never does the same.

Most of us, I suggest, are mildly curious to see into another building, whether it be a modern office block and you imagine what the workers are doing ….. “Oh! Look! Someone’s giving a presentation!” and my mind goes back to a similar event, whether I was giving the presentation or sitting through someone else’s ….. or somewhere where people live and you catch a glance of an xx or a yy or a zz. When does this mild curiosity become an obsession? Many people have voyeuristic tendencies but are unwilling to acknowledge them for fear of being discovered. Ah! These secrets we keep to ourselves. Is it a disorder being a voyeur? Well, there is no particular cause but some risk factors like alcohol misuse and abuse are often quoted in the development of an obsession.

A voyeur featured in the British television psychological thriller ‘The Couple Next Door’, written by David Allison and based on a Dutch series ‘New Neighbours’. A young couple move into a cul-du-sac and are immediately befriended by a couple across the green, who are swingers and like to engage in extra-marital sex. This is the main thread of the drama but a minor storyline concerns Alan, a peeping tom played by Hugh Dennis, who uses a telescope in his upstairs den to spy on the couple. Alan’s become increasingly lonely as he contemplates his own mortality and has nothing to say to his wife of many decades. Instead he scans the house across the street, projecting himself into a fantasy world in which he is king!

By definition, a peeping tom (Note 1) is a person who derives sexual pleasure from secretly watching people undressing or engaging in sexual activity. Legend has it that a tailor called Tom was the only person to watch the naked Lady Godiva as she rode through the streets of Coventry in 1040, so gaining a remission on harsh taxes imposed by her husband, Leofric, the Earl of Mercia.   

If you think Alan’s behaviour is not normal, reflect on the issue at Tate Modern in London a few years ago. About the same time as a 360° viewing gallery was opened on the 10^th floor of the Blavatnik Building, wealthy residents moved into the NEO Bankside building just to the southwest of the Tate, where a penthouse could cost over £20 million.

Visitors were mesmerised by what they could see in these apartments through the huge windows, some posting the results of their snooping on Instagram! Residents complained of being waved at and being forced to keep blinds down. So many visitors enjoyed the view into other people’s private living spaces that the artist Max Siedentopf installed a dozen binoculars. “No other artwork on display attracts as much fascination as these open-plan apartments.” (Ed. A great example of ‘living art’?)

After a High Court case in 2019 which ruled in favour of The Tate, which is in itself interesting (!), the residents appealed and in October 2023 the UK’s Supreme Court ruled, by 3 to 2, that The Tate was liable if its visitors caused a nuisance. The viewing platform is no longer 360° but 270°!

Minor voyeurism is often used in films. Some of you will have watched the wonderful Hitchcock’s production ‘Rear Window’. OK! It came out in 1954 but is such a classic it’s been broadcast hundreds of times since. A professional photographer played by James Stewart has a broken leg. Physically constrained, he whiles away his time by spying on his neighbours through his apartment’s rear window. However his innocent habit turns serious when he witnesses an apparent murder.

Then there is Paula Hawkins’ ‘The Girl on the Train’ that uses the same idea to tell her story. Every day Rachel Watson takes the train into work in New York and every day the train passes her old house, which is now lived in by her ex-husband, his new wife and child. Not wanting to focus on where she used to live, she starts watching a couple who live a few doors down, Megan & Scott Hipwell. Emily Blunt is Rachel in the 2016 film.

Thinking of the chap across my street reminded me of the American comedian Shelley Berman (1925 – 2017) and his Department Store skit (Note 1). In summary he notices someone in trouble outside a window in the department store across the street from his office and the tale unfolds as he calls the department store:

Eventually someone answers:

“You don’t know me but I work in the office building right across the street….

“No, south west …… and there’s a woman hanging from the window ledge on the 10^th floor.”

“No, I don’t wish to speak to her, I want someone to drag her in …

“Can I describe her? There’s only one woman hanging by her fingernails from a window ledge …… OK Could you put me through to that department please?”

“Complaints Department? …….

Etc etc

I wonder what the chap across my street would make of this postcard?

Richard 26^th April 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk         

Note 1 Not to be confused with Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1559 – 1575 who had a reputation for prying into the affairs of others – he acquired the nickname Nosey Parker

Note 2 Available on You Tube – The Department Store.

In The Hope Café in January (PCs 368 and 369) Sami, Mo and I were ruminating (Note 1) about trashy novels and how different writers can produce such contrasting prose. Of course it’s like any creative aspect of life, of composing music, writing plays or songs, painting in oils or in acrylics, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Every human endeavour has those who do it well and those who do it adequately, some perfectionists, some producers who create for the popular market and some who simply get by. I tend to believe I am in the latter category although often the judge is oneself! I was described as ‘autodidactic’ last month; I had to look up its meaning!

At its most basic, a sentence can simply be a subject, a verb and an object. For instance:

“The cow jumped over the moon.”

Nice and clear: an animal we identify as a cow jumped, that is lifted itself off the ground, over the moon, a lump of rock that orbits the earth once every twenty-four hours and immediately we think this is impossible! This is fairytale stuff, a nursery rhyme if nothing else! So we smile and move on. Those of you with good memories will be able to chant the complete nursery rhyme:

“Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such fun, and the dish ran away with the spoon.”  

This particular rhyme goes back a long way and its origin is complicated; Dutch priests in the C16th get a mention but it’s more likely to have originated in the wonder of the constellations in ancient Egypt and the worship of Hathor. Hathor was the mother of the sky god Horus and Ra, the sun god. She’s often depicted wearing a headdress of cow horns with a sun disk between them. In the constellations Lyra is the fiddle, Taurus the cow and Canis minor the dog, (See PS).

The Egyptian god Hathor

How Hathor worship, which I imagine was quite a serious business, transforms down the centuries into a mostly cartoon characterisation of a cow jumping over the moon is bewildering! It’s possible of course that someone actually saw a cow skip and that lined up with the reflection of a full moon in a pond; it caught their imagination.  

Take that initial sentence and embellish it. “The two-year-old British Holstein cow, quite a popular black & white breed here in the United Kingdom and renowned for its milk, leather and beef, was called Mathilda. Showing off to others in the herd, she jumped into the sky, with a little skip and a flourish, and lifted herself up and up. So she thought; in reality her udders were full of milk and she barely made it off the ground. “But it’s good to dream,” she thought “and I like showing off. You know I’m the comedian in the cow shed? Well, I think I could jump over the moon. Don’t you?”

Or ….

“My name is Angus and I am a professional photographer. I have worked on a number of leading nature programmes and the other day was asked to produce a photograph of a cow jumping over a full moon. Everyone is aware of the nursery rhyme and my photograph was needed for a poster for a new museum of fables and nursery rhymes in Manchester. I think this is a great idea as these historical tales have so much to teach us, at many levels. But in the back of my mind was a warning from my agent; “Angus! Never accept work involving animals.”

“I knew better, didn’t I. Apart from family pets I had been out on a horse a few times …… and they’re the same sort of size as a cow, aren’t they?

Fortunately, I know a dairy farmer down in Devon, so I called him and asked if I could come and take some pictures of a cow. Clearly it would need to be during the next full moon, which wasn’t due for a few days. I booked into a local B&B for a couple of nights, knowing that I needed to plan for the unexpected. The weather forecast was quite good for what I wanted, a relatively cloudless sky and out in the countryside there would be little light pollution. I planned to get into a hollow in one of the fields and have the cow up on top of a hillock, not far from its barn.

Brian chose Mathilda, a two-year-old British Holstein, brought her out and led her up to the hillock. We had discussed how we were going to get Mathilda to jump and reckoned the crack of a Thunderflash, a training pyrotechic, would do – although Brian worried that Mathilda might not produce milk for a few days afterwards!

Picture me then, in the hollow, my camera on a tripod, in the dark, looking at the full moon as it appeared above the horizon. Brian’s still had hold of Mathilda’s harness when, by mistake, he let off the Thunderflash. Two things happened simultaneously. I was startled, tumbled backwards and fell into something warm and smelly, but not before I saw Brian being dragged off the hillock by a very upset Mathilda.

“Could always Photoshop it, Angus?” said Brian when things were more under control. “Take a f**king photo of the full moon and one of Mathilda, superimpose one over the other …..”

“….. and ‘Bob’s my uncle?’ I thought but Brian’s challenge to my professionalism was not without merit …… and I think the result’s OK. What do you think?”

You know what, Angus? I’m over the moon! Perfect – tickled pink even.

Richard 19^th April 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS A French astronomer Jerome Lalande called one constellation Felix. As a cat lover he was sorry there was none named after a cat, although there are two lion constellations and one lynx. It was 1799.

Note 1 Ruminating seems an appropriate word here

After talking to Josh almost exclusively last time I was here in The Hope, I thought I should try potluck and find out who was in on Tuesday. Josh himself was behind the counter, on his own and very busy although, while I was ordering a double espresso, I quickly said:

“You know I write a weekly blog, my postcard scribbles as I call them?”

“Er? I think so ……”

“Well, someone read the one where I reiterated what you had said about your time in Israel and they said: ‘Great reporter style, concise. Fun read with an undertone of serious analysis peppered with humour. So many more questions brought up and that could be further explored.’ ”

“Yes! Richard. So many questions and few with any meaningful answers that will bring about peace. Whilst I felt I had to go and ‘do my bit’, I get incensed that, for instance, some elements in Israel think building their own settlements in the Palestinian West Bank is OK, despite being illegal – and no one does anything to stop them. Sorry, I could go on and on but I need to attend to my customers. See you next time maybe?”

Lisa is sitting by herself and looks up as I pick up my cup, so I join her. 

“You’re looking pleased with yourself. Why so?”

“Well, a month ago, I started my 16^th year of trying to do OK practising the Classic 26/2 Hot Yoga sequence. What a journey! The names of the teachers are scattered across my memory like confetti; Paul, Jasmin, Simi, Olga, Richard, Raj, Sanjay, Ted, Sam amongst them …. and currently Simon and BA.”

“Amazing! And I remember you saying that you’d met Celina in the Balham studio! Wow! Incidentally we all know Sami wants to move on from how his life was turned upside down by what’s become known as the Post Office Scandal, but he was watching the TV news the other evening and an item brought it all back. Another local sub postmaster, Sami Sabet, was being interviewed, saying he was rejecting the offer of £600k. He was wrongly convicted of stealing £50,000 in 2009 and given a 12-month suspended sentence. He owned three POs in Portslade and Shoreham and reckons he paid the PO more than £100k. He’s had a heart attack, developed type two diabetes, and has PTSD. Feel so sorry for all of them.”

“I read there was some secret report indicating they knew that Horizon engineers could remotely change figures in a Post Office account without anyone knowing, but for two years continued to prosecute and deny it. The then CEO, Vennells, told MPs: “I need to say it’s not possible.”, knowing full well it was! More to come no doubt!”

“Richard, I need to have a chat with Robert, so if you don’t mind ……”

Robert’s a lonely figure at a counter, tapping away at his laptop. Apparently he’s split up with his partner and his life is not much fun. Pleased to see Lisa doing something to encourage him.

I see Mo at one of the bench seats; she beckons me over.

“You were in the army, Richard, weren’t you? And you spent some time in Northern Ireland?

“Yes! I was and I did. (See PCs 196, 197 & 198). When troops were committed to aid the police in 1969, I was on a yacht in The Baltic and about to go to university. I genuinely thought I might miss it. No one imagined then it would roll on for 30 years.”

“Did you see that Rose Dugdale had died?”

“Remind me who she was, Mo? The name is stirring the muddy memory.”

“Born into an extremely privileged life, she rebelled and, in distancing herself from her parents, particularly from her mother, at 31 she joined the provisional IRA. To raise funds, she and her boyfriend carried out the theft of some Old Masters from Russborough House in County Antrim in 1974, owned by friends of Dugdale’s parents. She was sentenced to nine years in prison.”

“Ah! Yes! That woman, another upper-class nationalist and republican like, for instance, Erskine Childers and Roger Casement. Wasn’t Dugdale responsible for making many IRA bombs, notably one for the Baltic Exchange attack in London in 1992; three people died and 91 were injured? There will always be those who feel so passionate about their cause that, right or wrong, they firmly believe the end justifies the means, but I wonder whether she could have looked in the eye those who had lost loved ones, had their lives torn apart by injury and trauma and say it was for a good cause?”

“Probably not! Now, what else is happening? I hear Kate has gone back to her bus driving; we’ll miss her!

“Indeed she has and, yes, we’ll miss her. Do you remember one of my PCs, No 371 ‘Driving Along’ from January 2024, about my daughter meeting me at the Cobham Service Station before Christmas? Well, in The Sunday Times on 4^th February 2024 there was a fascinating article about some incompetent ‘detectorists’ who found gold jewellery and coins buried in a field since 878, thought to be worth some £10m. They didn’t follow any of the established procedures, didn’t report the find, and ended up with lengthy prison sentences. As part of their efforts to fence the coins, one of them met an antique coin collector and his wife in a secluded corner of the Costa coffee shop at the M25 Cobham service station. I read this and it reinforced the thought; we have no idea what is going on around us!”

“That’s funny! I was reading that higher wages and rising coffee bean prices are driving up the cost of a cup of coffee by 30%. I must have a word with Duncan to see how he’s coping. I expect he’ll put off developing the idea of a bookshop next door until after the General Election, don’t you think?”

……. to be continued.

Richard 12^th April 2024

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Here in the United Kingdom we don’t have national Identity Cards, although most would argue we do by default! It’s an issue at the heart of libertarians, wishing the State has a rather light hand on our personal lives. (See Denis Macshane’s view from Wednesday’s Times) (Note 1). Why should someone know how old I am? Apparently, some people don’t want others to know, but if you drive it’s not a State Secret! Rather clumsily, the Driving & Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), responsible for issuing driving licences, got around the problem with its format of one’s Driving Licence number!

For example, my identification/driving licence number is:

‘YATES410246RC8CS 37’. My birthday is 24.10. 46, hidden (?) between the ‘S’ and the ‘R’. The year wraps the month and the day. If you hadn’t realised this, I am sure you’re going to check your own driving licence?!

My regular readers will remember that at the end of last year I embarked on a medical MOT. As part of this review, I had to have a couple of day-surgeries in local hospitals, one the Montefiore here in Hove and the other the Nuffield hospital in Woodingdean (Note 2), which lies to the east of Brighton and has stunning views over the English Channel.

Being a day-patient requires inter alia two things. One is to accept the white plastic wristband that carries useful information, your hospital ID if you like; name, date of birth, patient identification number, possibly your address or postcode and the name of one’s consultant. The second is to resign oneself to the fact that every time the bell rings, someone will ask you for your date of birth and postcode. Even the chap from the catering department with his smart iPad ready to take my order for lunch had to ask: “just confirm your date of birth and postcode?” Not sure who else might have been sitting in a chair with DVT socks and a backless gown – apart from me?

At some point within one of the hospitals I went to a waiting room and interrogated the complicated coffee machine to get a double espresso. Was I imagining it when I heard a computer-generated voice from within the machine ask: “Date of birth and postcode please.”?

I am not sure I had any identification number until I signed up for military service in August 1965, in the nearest Army Recruitment Office to my parent’s house in Balcombe, here in Brighton. My soldier’s number was 24067711 and, although it was superseded by an officer’s number when I was commissioned, it remains on the tip of my tongue.  

Part of the prompt to write about identification was reading the obituary of Josette Molland (1923-2024), who survived the inhuman Nazi concentration camps and illustrated her experiences through her art. She probably had a number tattooed on her wrist as well.

During my two operational tours in Northern Ireland I was required to wear a set of ‘dog tags’ (Note 3) around my neck. In addition to my name, obviously, they had my Army officer’s number, in this case 484065, my blood group, O Positive, and my declared religion – CS standing for Church of Scotland.

Made of metal, they clanked together; not good if you were on some operation which required stealth! Most were therefore covered with duct tape! There was probably some regulation about their use in the event of their owner being killed; ie one with the body, one to the file, but one never wanted to find out!

I still have my Army ID card, albeit a ‘reserve’ one and that reserve commitment lapsed when I turned 55. Many years ago I was in Copenhagen on business and a friend was going to Malmo on the ferry in Sweden (Note 4). I thought I would go with them, but my passport was back in the hotel. So I chanced it by just waving my ID card. There and back; no problem!

Celina gifted me a haircut with Simon Webster, a skilled hairdresser with a salon in the North Laines in Brighton. Such a pleasure to be pampered occasionally and Simon’s a lovely character. As you do, we chatted about this and that and he revealed something fascinating. Returning to the UK after a holiday in Portugal, he tried the ‘Face Recognition’ Passport machine at Gatwick Airport. It didn’t work and, after a second attempt, he reluctantly joined the queue to present his passport to a human. Simon asked the Border Force individual why his passport always failed using the Face Recognition software. The answer’s amazing:

“Someone with the same name has a criminal record, so we will always do a physical check on your identity.”

 “But my face is my face! Surely those biometric details are unique to me?”

Apparently ‘the rules are the rules’.

In PC 134 I scribbled about a week in Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island. My memories of our time there are tainted by the experience of getting our Avis hire car when we first arrived, around 2000. Eventually finding the outside cabin that was their office, on opening the door we were confronted by some ten would-be renters like us. One agent was on duty; ‘take a number and wait’. We took an identity number, 69, and immediately did the maths; we were in for a wait of 90 minutes or more as currently they were dealing with ‘55’! Very fortunately a couple has taken two numbers and, having successfully hired their Fiat, gave us their spare – 60! Still, it was almost midnight when we arrived at our apartment south of Syracuse.

In Brazil they have a CPF (Cadastro de Pessoas Fisicas – Natural Persons Register) with its 11-digit number issued by the Brazilian Inland Revenue service. If you want to purchase anything more than your normal groceries, you have to present your CPF, making it pretty much essential for life in Brazil. Brazilians also must carry a traditional ID card, complete with a photograph and date of birth.

Richard 5^th April 2024

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS EU countries will not accept a passport issued more than ten years ago.

Note 1 “ID cards are the key to knowing who is in this country.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/12144546-2b16-4e3f-9b85-08e66307aeb2?shareToken=48334f5b085167a7abc7487cd64b7113

Note 2 Spelt dean, but originally in old English ‘dene’, it’s a common name for a valley and frequently found as a compound to place names. To the east of Brighton are Rottingdean, Ovingdean, Saltdean and Woodingdean. Two of the city’s northern suburbs are called Coldean and Withdean.

Note 3 The UK Armed Forces refer to them as Identity Discs but ‘dog tags’, the American term, is almost universal.

Note 4 This was before the long, beautiful bridge that now spans the Oresund was built.