Month: February 2025

PC 428 More of Life’s Observations

~ postcardscribblesblog ~ Leave a comment

In PC 424 ‘We are Nothing Without Hope’ (31 Jan 2025) I scribbled about the lasting memories some have of the Holocaust, such as Eddie Jaku who wrote ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’. Those who survived have been encouraged to record their experiences of their time in the Nazi Concentration Camps, such as Buchenwald, Belsen Bergen Hohne and Auschwitz. Doing so has awakened long-buried memories of horror, so there has been a great reluctance; but without their courage, these stories will be lost and they cannot be.

I recently finished ‘Lily’s Promise’ (Note 1), the autobiographical account of Hungarian Jew Lily Ebert’s time in Auschwitz-Birkenau from July 1944. In October 1944 she was moved to the Altenburg slave labour camp that provided the workforce for the HASAG munitions factory. In the first week of April the factory was closed and more than 2000 human skeletons of women and children were marched off – to somewhere. Three days later, on 12th April 1945, they realised their guards had gone. An American Army unit found them in a village called Pfaffroda, in Saxony, 5kms from the Czech border. The second half of Lily’s book is equally fascinating, hugely engaging, and I encourage you to read it.

Lily receiving her MBE

You know when you’re reading a book there’s sometimes a temptation to turn a corner of the page so you can reread a piece again? The rounding up of Hungarian Jews began at the end of June 1944. By 5th July, Lily and her two sisters find themselves herded like cattle onto a train for a journey of four days; with no food, no water, nowhere to defecate. It’s possible that cattle have more space. The train took them to Auschwitz. I had to read the following paragraph twice, so awestruck and horrified by its words:

“And now I must pause and think. Words can barely describe what happened next, but words are all I have. Even while I was living through this time, I could not comprehend it, so how could I convey the experience to someone who was not there? I try to go back in my head, to understand how our hearts kept beating, how our lungs kept breathing, how we did this, how we did that, the mechanics of our movements, how could this have possibly happened. I know it did, because I can’t forget it. I realise that at this point we simply went numb. I felt yet could not feel. I thought yet could not think. In the face of such brutality, nothing about me worked as it should. The idea that one human being could do this to another overwhelms me.”

Lily Ebert died on 9th October last year aged 100; her legacy, her promise, will hopefully be remembered for decades.

Needing to come back to today, to ‘now’, I head to the Hope Café and find Sami.

“Oh! Hi Richard” he said, looking up from his iPad. “Just trying to understand the debacle about the i360 (Note 2), how the council have written off the attraction’s debt of £53m and sold it to Nightcap for an undisclosed sum, rumoured to be between half and one-and-a-half million pounds. What do you think?”

“God! I had a very jaundiced view of the whole thing from its conception. Firstly 50% of the view from the top is the sea; no islands, no estuary mudflats, just the English Channel, so I thought it should have been called the i180! If you’ve been up The Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth ……”

The Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth

“Lisa and I have ……”

“….. you’ll remember there is something to see at every point of the compass. South and the whole of the Isle of Wight stretches in front of you, vertically down to HMS Victory and the dockyards, East towards Hayling Island and Chichester. Ferries, cargo ships, liners and yachts criss-cross The Solent.

The view across Gosport Marina to the Isle of Wight

Here in Brighton the offshore wind farm is the only thing that breaks the monotony of the view across The Channel.

The view east over the pier and marina towards the Seven Sisters

Secondly The Green Party was running the council when it was conceived, but the glass came from Italy and the metal tubes from The Netherlands; hardly ‘supporting the local economy’ …… and actually a sad reflection on the UK’s manufacturing capabilities.

The view west. We live just inland from the top of the green strip (Hove Lawns)

Thirdly, everyone wants to take photographs when they get to the top, so the glass should have been non-reflective. Didn’t anyone realise this was a major requirement? Too expensive? Then don’t build it!

Reflections of legs etc spoil the photograph

And lastly, it was never going to make enough money to pay off its debt; the council borrowed, inter alia, £36 million from the Government Public Works Loan Board. Currently it stands at £53 million!”

“It’s been bought by Nightcap, a company founded by Sarah Willingham-Toxvaerd in 2020, that runs some 46 hospitality sites across the UK. They take over the 115-year lease of the site. Do you know how many people have actually been up it Richard?”

“Well, Celina and I have, and my son-in-law Sam has climbed right to the top, but the wildly optimistic prediction was 739,000 per year. The reality is that the total number of visitors from when it opened in August 2016 and January 2023 was only 1,879,000; that’s only 268,000 per year, with some allowance for the pandemic lockdown. That tells you why it went into administration.”

“So often common sense is drowned out, this time by back-of-the-fag-packet predictions; the debt’s been written off to facilitate the sale and now the council take that on! Great!”

Richard 28th February 2025

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 In the depths of Auschwitz, Lily made a promise to herself that, if she survived, she would dedicate the rest of her life to ensuring the world knew what happened during The Holocaust.

Note 2 The so-called i360 is a 162m tower erected on Brighton’s seafront in 2016. It’s opposite the skeletal remains of the City’s West Pier, which burnt down in suspicious circumstances in 2003. A 200-person capacity observation capsule rises to 138m so visitors can take in the view.

PC 427 Hope Conversations

~ postcardscribblesblog ~ Leave a comment

I had promised Libby I would offer what support I could after she’d confided in Josh and me that she’d been Love Scammed. Knowing she’d be finishing her Barista duty behind the Hope Café counter mid-afternoon on Tuesday, I popped in, grabbed a double espresso from Josh, and joined Libby at one of the more secluded tables.

“Good to see you Richard and I think talking about my experience will help put it behind me. It knocked my confidence so much and has made be both more anxious and also more suspicious of other people, and that’s horrible.”

“Jim died a few years ago, right?

“Dear Jim. Yes. We’d had some wonderful times, then he had a heart attack and died in his chair, watching some trashy Soap on telly. He was only 68.”

“Well, I think that’s a good way to check out, rather than in a hospital bed or in some smelly care home. Then you came to join Duncan’s team here?”

“Gives me an opportunity to engage with the customers; some are delightfully chatty and when Susie was here. (Note 1) I felt like I had another family. But it was lonely at home, so when Andrew, never sure it was his real name, made contact via Facebook, I answered. He claimed to have known Jim through work ….. and soon we were texting quite regularly. Over a few weeks I began to look forward to his messages, telling me of his time in the Army, of his divorce and his sad estrangement from his three children. He made out he’d been the victim in the divorce, had lost so much and was now struggling financially. My heart went out to him, how his story of loneliness resonated with mine. We all need the company of others, right?

“Absolutely Libby. I’ve had periods in my own life when I have felt very lonely, others when I am surrounded by people, people whom I trust and love. Don’t tell me, Andrew asked for some money, like a friend’s brother David? A 61-year-old divorcee, he was sucked into believing that Tatiana from Leningrad was in love with him; he took the bait, ‘hook, line and sinker’! She couldn’t wait to come to England but first needed, oh! I can’t remember, money for her grandmother’s operation, a new passport, to buy the flights that she kept putting off. Eventually she hoodwinked him out of £30,000. Apparently there is still a hesitation in David’s mind that Tatiana exists, that she loves him!”   

“Exactly! Silly isn’t it! I’ve thought how could educated people be so stupid, and yet here I was sending money to his UK bank account, so he could pay the outstanding solicitor’s bill of £750. I had some savings and I imagined our relationship would be strengthened; maybe he would finally meet me.”

“So what happened? What made you realise it was a scam?”

“He said he was going to take me to Rome for a long weekend to say Thank You. He gave me all the details, flight timings, the name of the hotel and so on. Then he admitted he didn’t have a credit card and the hotel needed one for security. Oh! Why oh why! I gave him the card details and the security number and arranged to meet him at Check-in at Gatwick Airport on the Friday afternoon.”

“And he never showed? And he used your credit card? Oh! Libby I am so sorry.”

“Exactly! I felt so let down, cried all the way back to Hove in the taxi and tried to stop my credit card being used fraudulently. He took £15,000. The bank said I had given him my details and there was little it could do. (Note 2) There! Now I have told someone it feels better, so thank you Richard. The more people who know the less others will fall for these scams. Now I had better say goodbye to Josh and get on with my day. See you soon.”

I see Sami munching on a croissant so go and say hello.

“Haven’t got long, but thought I could tell you a recent experience.”

“Why not, Richard. If it’s quick.”

“Had to laugh the other day, both at myself and with Sandra, the Tesco member of staff. Although we naturally use Waitrose for our online weekly shop, there is a large Tesco’s supermarket a 5-minute walk away, opposite St Andrew’s Church in central Hove, which is handy for those few things you need right now. My regular but infrequent visits prompted me to apply online for a Tesco Clubcard, on the basis it costs me nothing and would occasionally reduce the bill at check-out. I downloaded it to my Wallet on my iPhone and on Monday thought I would try it out.

Arriving at the self-service checkout, I scanned my three items, opened the Wallet App, found the Tesco logo and presented the QR Code to the scanner. “We do not recognise this.” was its response. So I tried again ….. and got the same result. Whilst the supermarket wasn’t busy so I wasn’t holding up anyone, Sandra, who was just clearing empty plastic baskets, asked whether she could help. I explained I had never used my Clubcard before but …. and she took my iPhone and showed it to the scanner …. and got the same result. She then looked at my Wallet. The Tesco Clubcard QR Code was hiding behind an old Covid Travel Pass, which had expired in December 2021. We had a laugh.”

“Actually, that is funny Richard. Now, see you ….”

Richard 21st February 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Susie is Libby’s niece. After time in The Hope Café, Susie took a late Gap Year for six months in New Zealand and Australia before coming home to do a course in logistics.

Note 2 Victims of Romance Fraud lost more than £7 million in over 600 cases in Surrey and Sussex last year.

PC 426 It’s a Fine Line ….

~ postcardscribblesblog ~ 4 Comments

I was going to scribble how it’s often a fine line between success and failure, between life and death …… but I thought I would consult my Oxford Illustrated Dictionary and see what it says about ‘line’. Wow! Over a column of the three-columns-to-a-page layout devoted to the word ‘line’.

Most would immediately understand it is a noun and that it joins two points. We have telegraph and power lines; lines marking the boundaries of, for instance, a tennis court; life lines on the palm of your hand; lines that connect points having common property, like an isobar, or the Equator or lines of longitude or latitude; lines to be learned by actors, as opposed to reading between the lines to discover a meaning not obvious or expressed; a line of poetry remembered years later; somewhere to hang your washing, the clothes line; words to be written out as a school punishment; naval ships in formation are often line astern or line abreast;

tram lines in cities or railway lines criss-crossing the country; in Rugby Union forwards form a line to receive the ball from the touchline, a ‘line out’. As a verb, troops could line the streets for ceremonial occasions; you could line a drawer with paper or you could line your stomach, anticipating drinking too much alcohol!

My own fine line, my brush with death in 1991, remains very clear today. As a passenger (in car A in diagram) being driven into Canberra, Australia during the rush hour, traffic was heavy in both directions. Suddenly we were aware of a car (car B) overtaking the oncoming traffic, coming at us head-on. There was nowhere to go. My friend decided to swing right, although instinctively left would have been the better option!

The oncoming car swung to their right; a collision seemed inevitable. The only touch was the paintwork on the passenger-side wing mirror; a very fine line indeed.

Writing about lines, fine or not, remined me of a question I often asked my clients in their first coaching session. I would draw nine dots on a piece of paper, thus:

then ask them to join them up, using four straight lines, without taking their pencil off the paper. We habitually see things that aren’t necessarily there, because it gives us a comfortable feel, recognition of the familiar. I recall that about 25% of my clients were successful. Trump is thinking ‘outside of the box’ with his ideas about Gaza – makes me wonder whether he would be in the 25% or not?

Last weekend in Europe we had the second round of the Six Nations (Note 1) Rugby Union Competition. England were playing France; it was a very good game to watch and the lead changed hands throughout, although a last minute try by England meant we won 26 points to 25 …. a fine line. (Note 2)

Words which mean the same are collectively called synonyms, like ask, question or inquire, or beautiful, gorgeous and dazzling. You can also have a phrasal synonym, like ‘fine line’ and ‘hair’s breadth’. Typically a hair strand is between 0.03mm and 0.08mm in diameter; one nominal value often chosen is 75µm. Such measures can be found in many cultures; for instance in the Burmese system of Long Measure a tshan khyee, the smallest unit is literally a ‘hair’s breadth’.

A straight line between two points can be at any angle, but geometrically graphs always have at least two axes, one horizontal and one vertical. My pedantic nature is offended if something isn’t level, horizontal or vertical. Sometimes it’s a fine line, even half a degree or so. When we moved into our apartment in Amber House after its conversion in 2012, a couple of light switches were not straight; given the availability of spirit levels, it was a good example of poor workmanship.  

When sailing, if the wind is coming from the direction you want to go in, you have to ‘beat’, with the sails as flat as possible. It’s a very fine line to steer the yacht at its optimum; too much into the wind and sails start being back-winded; too far off the wind and the yacht heels so much, reducing the efficiency of the sail area. When you get it right, it’s as if the yacht ‘lifts its skirt and flies’; yachts are always female by tradition so this expression should be safe in this sensitive world.

For James Howells it’s still a fine line between success and abject misery! In Wales in 2013 he had a bitcoin wallet worth £4 million; its password was stored on his hard drive. His girlfriend, possibly ex by now (?), threw out the hard drive with some rubbish, presumably without knowing what it was. Somewhere under a mountain of household waste in some council refuse tip is a hard drive which, if retrieved, could unlock, at current bitcoin value, about a billion pounds sterling. He’s even offered the council millions if he’s allowed to successfully search for it, so far without success. 

The polarisation of everything, including politics, views about this and that, personal opinions, is making society more fractious, the line between acceptable and unacceptable extremely thin, like living on a knife-edge. With the increase in false news stories and conspiracy theories, it’s surely time for us all to apply good old fashioned common sense and move towards the centre.  

David Lammy the UK Government’s Foreign Secretary: “There’s a fine line, as you know, between free speech and hate speech.” Maybe I could add that it’s also a fine line between love and hate, other extremes. So, let’s concentrate on ‘Love’, particularly on this romantic day?

Richard St Valantine’s Day 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribles.co.uk

PS Last Summer, a tree near my brother-in-law’s apartment in Estoril Portugal looked as though it could do with about one third taken off it. Someone asked whether that should be from the top or the bottom. (Just think about that?)

Note 1 The six nations comprise England, Scotland, Wales, France, Italy and Ireland

Note 2 The previous weekend Ireland had beaten England 27-22.

PC 425 Generation Z

~ postcardscribblesblog ~ 1 Comment

The lyrics of Mike & The Mechanics’ song ‘The Living Years’ start: ‘Every generation, blames the one before, and all of their frustrations, come beating on your door.’ Nothing new under the sun then?

To those of my readers born between 1997 and 2012, although I doubt if my eldest grandson Jasper aged 13 is reading my postcards, and known collectively as Generation Z, thank you. (See Note 1 for generational definitions.) Thank you for what you have done for those of us who don’t want to drink alcohol or who don’t want to drink much alcohol or for those of us who believe you can celebrate anything without getting completely sozzled, hammered, out-of-it. In these scribbles I am exploring Generation Z, a decidedly different generation than those that have gone before, or is it? Is it solely that ‘Gen Z’ has a catchy ring to it, not something that could be levelled at ‘Millennials’!

I grew up in a household when there were two landline telephones, one in my parents’ bedroom and the other downstairs. Local telephone calls weren’t that expensive, ‘trunk’ ones more so ….. and international ones had to be booked through an operator. My Scottish step-father kept a tight control on the length of the latter. Then came mobiles, ‘cells’ if you are American, and talking to someone not next to you was easy. In fact telephone calls have become so ubiquitous that for some they’re a nuisance, an intrusion, and they’ve stopped answering their mobile. A rather odd choreography’s developed; you text someone to say you want to talk to them, asking if it’s convenient. The recipient, rather than call you, responds to your question.

A recent survey of 18 – 34-year-olds, so Millennials and Generation Z, found that 25% never answer their mobile; they either ignore the ringing, respond via text or, if they don’t recognise the number, search for it online. Psychologists have suggested that as they haven’t developed the habit of speaking on the phone, it now seems to Generation Z as weird and not the norm. Mind you we’ve all got fed up with cold calls and scammers. I do not answer my phone if I don’t recognise the number; if it’s important the caller will leave a message. My only exception is my local GP’s Surgery …. but for some very strange reason that comes up as ‘Majestic Wines’!

Generation Z have made more headlines about their beliefs and habits than previous ones but that probably reflects the exponential rise in fast communication. Traditionally there have been some big milestones in life; going to university, getting married, owning property and maybe having a baby (Note 2). According to Ceci Browning (aged 23): “The average cost of a house deposit is £50,000; the average age to be able to put that down is 34. The average age for getting married is around 31. With no savings, no hope of buying a house anytime soon and no desire to rush into lifelong monogamy, my generation are turning our backs on these objectives and finding alternative markers to measure the progress of our lives.”

They obviously think it’s the fault of previous generations that houses seem unaffordable, but then they display a rather ‘I want it, and I want it now’ attitude; the entitled generation. I reflect I was 31 when I first got married, 32 when I bought my first house; so maybe this is just a whinge?

For Ceci, her markers are running a Half Marathon; quitting her job …. to follow her dream; taking a sabbatical …. after getting qualified and knuckling down; go back-packing for six months before she’s 30; launching an entrepreneurial side-line to feel accomplished; moving abroad …. and finally, starting therapy.

It’s well known that Generation Z talk about their feelings more than any previous ones.  Robert Crampton, a Times writer: “I’m thinking, for instance, of hugging. Young people hug each other all the time, even at first meeting, boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys. Hugging just wasn’t done when I was their age, not even between parents and their kids, or not much anyway, and we missed out. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t love a hug?” You will remember that worrying headline from Caitlin Moran from PC 421: ‘Too many boys are killing themselves. We have to encourage them to talk, cry and scream.’

Having spent 15 years seeing business clients 1:1, I know how vitally important it can be to talk to someone, to engage. If it’s become normal for Generation Z, that’s all for the good. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, there is a large difference between coping with life’s ups and downs, experiencing, learning, making choices, and claiming ‘it’s bad for my mental health’! An extremely small number of people do need medication and care to simply survive, but the cry from a majority about their mental health is getting very boring.

More information about this generation appeared last month. Shock headlines: ‘They don’t own a car’ – if you live in a town, why would you? Costly to park, bad for the urban environment! ‘Forty three percent don’t drink alcohol’ – wonderful! ‘They think they are more hygienic than other generations.’ – now that can’t be a bad thing; we could all learn better hygiene habits. ‘They are food-aware ie about glucose and lactose and allergies but not obsessed with their size or shape.’ We have an obesity crisis in the UK so being more knowledgeable about food must be a good thing.

A final comment. If you belong to either Gen Z or are a Millennial, be aware of both the positive and the negative power of social media. Cancelling anyone is a good example of the latter.

Richard 7th February 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Greatest (1901-1927), The Silent (1928-1945), The Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), Millennials (1981-1996), Generation Z (1997-2012), Generation Alpha ((2013-2024) and Generation Beta (2025-2039)

Note 2. The birthrate across most developed countries is dropping, despite their effects to encourage more procreation. Everyone is worried that the growing financial burden of an older population falling on the shrinking workforce is unsustainable. Fortunately, here in the UK net immigration seems to buck the negative trends seen elsewhere. But young adults no longer necessarily think having a baby is the next logical step along life’s path; according to Shane Watson, writing in The Times, they rather see it as ‘the single biggest drain on resources, time, freedom and mental stability …. and it’s voluntary’.